Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind the source for blindness news and information since 1907

Over the past 50 years, the US has done a lot to change how people with disabilities are treated. No longer are the disabled housed in institutions, never to be seen in public, and many of them are working. Sadly though, many are working at what are called shelter workshops. These “places of employment” are legally allowed to pay their disabled workers less then minimum wage if their employer deems that their work is less then what an able bodied person would be able to do. These shelter workshops are designed to give disabled workers skills so that they can go out into the real job market, but in reality, many workers will never leave the shelter workshop or be paid at least minimum wage for their work. The Cerebral Palsy Association chapter in Oregon has just filed a lawsuit asking that the state of Oregon return to its original mission of getting disabled workers into real employment.

Last year the National Disability Rights Network came out with a report that looked at the effectiveness and usefulness of shelter workshops. This report, and the knowledge that only a quarter of disabled Oregonians are being given the tools to get out of shelter workshop placements, is what influenced the Cerebral Palsy Association to file the lawsuit. According to the report, there are numerous problems with shelter workshops. Some of the problems include: isolation from the community, reinforcement of living in poverty, teaching skills that can’t be transferred to competitive job options, and no need for innovation or change since they don’t have to compete for their contracts. The report found that a disabled worker in a shelter workshop earns on average $175 per month, where as the average able bodied worker makes $456 a week.

After reading the report, I am appalled to know that this kind of treatment is still legal. The ADA was passed over 20 years ago, and technology allows many disabled people to do tasks they never would have dreamed of. I encourage everyone to read the report and contact their congressmen to change the law. Here’s a link to the report: http://www.ndrn.org/images/Documents/Resources/Publications/Reports/Segregated-and-Exploited.pdf

Heres a link that discusses the lawsuit against the state of Oregon: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-oregon-disabled-lawsuittre80p07g-20120125,0,7475636.story

Here’s a link to the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act that’s in congress right now: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-3086

What are your feelings about these shelter workshops and sub-minimum wages for disabled workers? Let us know in the Reader’s Forum.

When I moved to Oregon almost 10 years ago, I knew that the biggest adjustment would be getting used to the weather. Specifically, as a desert rat, I would have to come to terms with all the rain. Over the years I’ve adjusted, and for the most part, Oregon rain doesn’t bother me. It might rain for days at a time, but the rain is usually light–however, this is not always the case. Last week brought us not only a bit of snow, but four inches of rain in one day.

January 18, 2012 has been recorded as the third largest amount of rainfall in one day in the last 100 years. Even though Oregon does well with lots of rain, that much rain in one day causes flooding. On that day, I was teaching my knitting class so I got home pretty late. As my husband and I were coming down the major street that leads to our neighborhood, we were stopped by a police blockade. The street had over a foot of standing water in places, and it wasn’t safe for us to drive through. This meant we had to park our car blocks away from our house and walk the rest of the way. The walk from the car was quite the adventure and my pants were soaked up to my knees by the time we arrived. Thankfully, the street we live on was not flooded so our house was fine.

Walking home through the high water was not dangerous because the water wasn’t moving, but if I had been alone with my guide dog it would have been much more frightening for me. So, since chance favors the well prepared, I did some research. According to FEMA, here are some things to do during a flood.

If you must prepare to evacuate, you should do the following:

- Secure your home.
- Collect your pets so that you can take them with you and/or leave them in a friend’s or relative’s care or at an emergency animal shelter.
- If you have time, move essential items to an upper floor.
- Turn off utilities at the main switches or valves if instructed to do so. Disconnect electrical appliances. Do not touch electrical equipment if you are wet or standing in water.

If you have to leave your home, remember the following:
- Do not walk through moving water. Six inches of moving water can make you fall. If you have to walk in water, walk where the water is not moving. Use a stick to check the firmness of the ground in front of you.

Winter sure does bring us some strange weather. I hope everyone stays safe.

Have you ever been in a flood? Tell us about your experience in the Reader’s Forum.

A South African burger chain, Wimpy’s, recently introduced a new way to present their burgers. As part of their campaign to introduce menus for the visually impaired at their restaurants, they joined forced with the Metropolitan Republic ad agency to create Braille messages with sesame seeds on the top of the burger buns.

While most of us are used to the notion of a mass assembly line operation, in this instance, every sesame seed was placed by hand on the top of the buns with a message that read, “100 percent pure beef burger made for you.” A video of this process shows the bun makers carefully placing each seed with long tweezers to ensure that the message appears correctly.

The campaign was overwhelmingly successful–not just due to its originality, but because of the amount of people they reached. The special burgers were delivered to three of the country’s largest institutions for the visually impaired and ended up reaching over eight hundred thousand people who were either already blind, or were beginning to lose their sight.

I’m a sucker for an original ad campaign, but this really goes above and beyond what you hear about every day. The company not only made a pledge to accommodate the visually impaired population, but really put forth a lot of effort to make those people feel special by painstakingly creating something that was just for them.

As more companies begin to cater to the visually impaired community, they should all look to this South African burger chain as an example to follow.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5876108/sesame-seed-braille-buns-promote-menus-for-the-visually-impaired

Last week was Lewis Braille’s birthday. On that day, we celebrate what braille has done for the blind. Sadly though, even though braille is still celebrated, the braille literacy rate is only 12%, and it’s likely to get worse unless something changes. One of the reasons for the low braille literacy rate is the cost of producing braille on paper and in a digital format. If the cost of braille displays were at a level that blind consumers could afford them, it’s likely that the use of braille would increase. But now, the dream of a low cost braille display might actually come to be, thanks to a project by David Pankhurst.

According to David’s Indeogogo page, “The goal of this project is to make an open-source/open-hardware braille reader simpler, easy to build, well documented, and inexpensive so people anywhere can build it themselves or have it made locally.” He is currently working on the design for the braille display and hopes to have documentation and a prototype sometime early this year. If you’re interested in donating to the project, visit the Indiogog page: http://www.indiegogo.com/Open-Source-Braille-Display

David also has a great blog where he talks about the process of the project and why he’s decided to make the design the way it is. Many of the blog posts are very technical, but I think it will be very helpful to engineers who decide to participate in the project. To read his blog visit this link: http://www.utopiamechanicus.com/

It is my hope that this project is successful, and that one day I will be able to buy myself a braille display. As technology continues to improve, braille technology also needs to improve and become affordable. The braille displays currently on the market are out of reach for most blind Americans, but imagine how out of reach they are for people in the developing world. Any improvements would be a huge breakthrough.

RockBand is one of the most popular games out there. I myself have played RockBand with my friends, but have been only able to be the vocalist because I’m unable to see the screen. I, and likely many blind people, would like the chance to play the other instruments and experience everything the game has to offer. This may become possible soon, thanks to a project called RockVibe.

To start, I’ll explain how the regular RockBand is played. Players pick an instrument, either guitar, bass guitar, or drums. They then hit keys on the guitar or hit the drums with the drum sticks based on colored bars that appear on the screen. The way RockVibe will work will be to have the player where an electronic device that sends vibrations that correspond to the colored bars on the screen. When the player feels a certain vibration, they hit the corresponding key on the guitar or piece of the drum kit.

RockVibe started as a project for Rupinder Dhillon in 2008 when she was a student at UC Santa Cruz. She had a lot of success in beta testing, and is now raising money through Kickstarter to make the game a reality.

If you like the idea of the game, consider donating to the project here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rupa211/rock-vibe

To see a video that explains more about the game, visit this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvgIXEdAZpo

What are some video games that you like to play, or would like to developers to modify so that they can be accessible to visually impaired gamers?

In 2009, Christi Bruchok and Tauru Chaw rode across the country on a tandem bike. This may not sound so amazing, until you realize that both of them are visually impaired. After making that trek they decided to make their next tandem adventure even bigger. Last week, they flew to Argentina, and for the next 18 months, they’ll be riding from Argentina to Alaska. The journey will be 16,000 miles, and along the way they’ll be visiting schools for the blind to inspire children to believe that anything is possible.

The goal of the journey is primarily to raise awareness, but it is also a fundraiser for the couple’s chosen charity. Christi and Tauru have decided to support Research to Prevent Blindness, a small non-profit that spends 90% of their funds on research. You can give to RPB by visiting the support section of their website.

As they were preparing to set off on their journey last week, they hit a slight hurdle. The airline they were using to get to Argentina decided not to allow them to put their tandem on the plane even though they had called and cleared it with the airline before arriving at the airport. Thankfully, though, they were able to send it using UPS and the airline is reimbursing them for the cost of shipping the bike. They’re currently in Buenos Aires and hope to start their long journey north next week.

Please visit their website to follow their journey: http://www.twoblindtoride.org

I recently had the “pleasure” of taking a standardized test for one of my grad school applications. When I signed up for the test, I was hoping that I would be able to take it on the computer using a screen reader because that is my preferred way of taking exams. However, this was not an option. The computerized test was not accessible with any screen readers, so instead I got the test in braille and had a reader/scribe. If you’ve never had to take a long exam with a reader, you’re lucky. Not only does the use of a reader make the test take longer, but for the writing section I had to dictate to her my writing instead of being able to type it myself. I bring up this issue because apparently using a screen reader for the bar exam is also not available. A recent law school grad had to sue the company in order to take the exam using her preferred method.

The bar exam and the CBest, which is the test I took, are just two examples of standardized tests that aren’t available to screen reader users. The company that makes the bar exam claims that they are concerned about costs and security and that because they offer other accommodations like Braille, that they don’t need to make the test accessible with a screen reader. As the newly sworn in lawyer says, “You graduate law school. You’ve done well, and all of a sudden to take that licensing exam you can’t get the software you need.”

The real problem is that these companies obviously don’t get it. In an ideal world blind test takers would use braille because we would be proficient in it, but this isn’t an ideal world. When I started taking exams in college using a screen reader it took a huge stress off my shoulders. Finally I could take my tests alone and reread anything I needed to on my own time. Having a reader is good in certain situations, but most of the blind people I know have a harder time taking an exam with someone they often don’t know. It is my hope that someday we’ll have access to the accommodations we need for these exams, and that we won’t have to fight anymore.

To read the article about the woman who won her lawsuit, visit this link: http://wusa9.com/news/article/178240/373/Blind-Woman-Admitted-To-DC-Bar-Despite-Hurdles-Thrown-By-Examiners

Having access to good public transportation is very important for the blind. Learning to use the bus system can be a challenge, though. Some might think that the biggest challenge is knowing what bus route to take to get to your destination, but knowing where the bus stop is located and what routes the stop serves can be equally challenging. I myself have had two unsettling situations with bus systems.

One involved the bus stop being moved without me being informed, and the other involved a route changing it’s time schedule . In both of these cases, a new iPhone app that’s being developed at the University of Washington could have helped me avoid having to contact a sighted assistant to get me the information I needed.

The new app will be a part of “One Bus Away,” a popular app that helps Seattle bus riders get up to date information about the buses and their routes. The added information that will be helpful to the blind will give information about exactly where a bus stop is located, what routes that stop serves, and what kinds of amenities the stop has, such as a bench. The app is using crowd sourcing to get the needed information about the stops, so bus riders will help update the app as they see things change. It’s a good system because there’s no incentive to give wrong information, or else that person might miss the bus themselves. It is the hope of the developers that the app will be ready for use by early next year.

If this app becomes successful, it is my hope that this kind of accessibility will be built into other apps that service other transit districts. For example, this app, in conjunction with Google’s GTFS feeds, would allow the blind to not only plan their route in advance, but then know how to get to the bus stops they’ll need.

To read the full article visit this link: http://www.king5.com/news/technology/Blind-bus-riders-smartphone-app-133570733.html

As some of you may remember, I am hoping to become a teacher of the blind and visually impaired. Since I don’t have an education background, unless you count being raised by educators, I decided to get some experience in the classroom to see if teaching was for me. Last month, I was able to shadow one of our local itinerant teachers of the blind and meet some of his students. It was a great experience that taught me a lot in just one day. After meeting some of his students we decided to have me work with a few of them to enhance their braille reading and assistive technology skills.

Before I started volunteering, I was invited to one of the schools to do a presentation on guide dogs to not only educate the students, but prepare them for having me visit their school on a regular basis. I can now proudly say that the students almost always ask before petting Midge, and they’re respectful if I say no.

On my first day volunteering with my second grader, we practiced his braille reading skills. He is learning grade 2 braille, and making some good progress. Recess is during the time that I’m there, and on the first day I joined the kids at the request of my student. It was an interesting experience for me as a future teacher. I think for the sake of my guide dog, recess is not a good place for me because it distracts the kids from playing and is overwhelming for the dog.

One of my favorite things about volunteering is that everyone is happy that I’m there and that I’m using my own braille skills to help a young braille reader enhance his reading skills. One of the reasons I want to become a teacher is because I believe braille is critical for the blind to be successful, and I think that knowing braille means I’m more likely to spend the time needed to teach it.

If you’re looking for a way to use your knowledge of braille or adaptive technology, consider contacting your local school for the blind or itinerant teacher to ask if you can volunteer with their students. It’s very rewarding.

Oregon is a pioneer for accessible voting. Some of their accessible voting options include large print and html ballots that can be emailed to voters. I myself have used the accessible html ballot to vote in numerous elections. The counties also have been sending out election officials to people’s homes and having them use a laptop to make their votes, but this technology is becoming outdated and too expensive to replace. In last week’s election, they started a pilot project where voters use an iPad to make their selections.

Some of the reasons that the iPad was chosen for the pilot project was because of the low cost and built-in accessibility. The iPad can provide large print as well as high contrast to low vision users, voiceover for blind users, and even external devices for those with mobility issues. Apple donated the 5 iPads for the pilot study, and if it goes well and there’s positive feedback, then the secretary of the state hopes to provide all counties with iPads for future elections.

The ability to vote in private is very empowering. I appreciate that Oregon is going above and beyond to make the voting process as accessible as possible. It is my hope that the iPad project is a success and that this technology will not only be used in Oregon, but around the country.

To learn about the accessible voting options that Oregon provides visit this link: http://www.co.washington.or.us/AssessmentTaxation/Elections/VAP/index.cfm

How do you participate in the voting process? Let us hear about it in the Reader’s Forum.