Behind the blind

By: Chasity M.
 Blind Facts
 More Americans than ever face the threat of Blindness from
Age related Eye Diseases.
 The New York State Commission for the Blind and Visually
Handicapped estimates that there are 120,000 blind New
Yorkers and nearly 1 million New Yorkers with vision loss. New
Yorkers benefit from specialized vision rehabilitation services,
especially the growing population of older New Yorkers with
vision loss, and African-American, Latino or Asian New
Yorkers who experience higher prevalence rates of vision
loss.
 Poverty is a fact of life for many blind adults, especially older
women. Few blind adults receive welfare. Most blind men in
poverty receive food stamps, but most blind women in
poverty do not. Nearly one in five (19 percent) lives in poverty.
Only 19 percent are currently employed. All of the adults in the
survey have worked in their lifetimes, either for pay or as
volunteers. (Blind Adults in America: Their Lives and
Challenges. A Report by the National Center for Policy
Research for Women and Families. February 2004)

 Nearly 1-4 American children between the
ages of 3-16 wears eyeglasses.
 10% of American children under the age of
12 need vision correction.
 Cataracts are the primary reason for self-
reported vision impairment and the third
leading cause of preventable blindness
in the United States.
   A person can have 20/20 eyesight, and
yet have a visual problem which does
not allow them to get meaning and
understanding from what is seen.
 Vision can often be the basis for poor
eye-hand coordination, motion sickness
and clumsiness.
 Our eyes are very complex organs.

Louis Braille
 Born 1809, near Paris in a small town called
Coupvray.
 As a young boy he was poor, one day he was
playing with a awl(a tool to poke hole in a leather
belt) when he bent over, and damaged his eye
forever.
 Sometime after that his other eye became
infected, and he lost his sight altogether.
 After his difficult start in life, he was excellent in
school, he was offered a scholarship for the
blind.
 He received the scholarship to Royal Institution for
Blind Youth, while he was there they gave them
“raised type” to read and such, but it took them
forever.
 This is when Louis Braille came up with raised dots
that I what we know now is Braille.
Helen Keller
 Born 1880-1968
 19 months was happy, and
already saying a few words.
 She caught a high fever
which caused her to go
deaf, and blind.
 Helen Keller was successful
only because if her determination.
However many people helped her.
The most important person in her life
was Ann Sullivan was stayed with her
for 50 years.

Ray Charles
 A multitalented blind black
musician. Born in 1930-2004
 He began loosing his sight at
age 5, not long after witnessing his
brother drowning. At age 7 he
lost his sight all together.

Stevie Wonder
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Harriet Tubman
Alec Templeton
Galileo Galilei
Andrea Bocelli
John Milton
James Thurber
Claude Monet
Horatio Nelson