We have distributed our brief, and I'm sure you have taken the opportunity to read that. It contains the factual information, so we don't think we'll go over the brief, because you're quite capable of understanding that, I hope. We'd be very happy to answer questions about that when we're finished.
What we thought we would do this morning is tell you a couple of stories of how employment can affect the lives of people with vision loss. I thought there was no better story than my own to tell, as I'm quite familiar with it.
I grew up as a sighted child and went through school and through college being what I thought was able to see, but when I was 21, I was diagnosed with an eye condition called retinitis pigmentosa. I was told at that point in time that I would be blind by Christmas, which is a scary thing to have happen to you when you're that age. Needless to say, that devastated me and my family. There really wasn't anyone to talk to or anyone to turn to. My ophthalmologist referred me to CNIB.
CNIB at that point in time had a number of vocational counsellors and a number of employment counsellors. That's where I was referred. The vocational counsellors sat with me and talked about the eye condition, but also took the time to listen to what I wanted to do. They helped me work towards the goal I had set for myself. Although some people would think it would not have been a great goal for a person with vision loss to try to aspire to, they worked with me. They helped me get into school. They encouraged me. They provided me with the support I needed to have the courage to keep going forward at a time when I really felt I probably would be unemployable, that I'd probably never work, that I'd be reliant on family benefits or something like that.
From there I did go back to school. I went back to being a post-graduate, and then I came back to CNIB, and their employment counsellors worked with me to help me find employment. I worked for 10 years in the private sector in a couple of different jobs before I came back and ended up working at CNIB.
One of the things that were there then that I don't see today is that kind of support being available. The CNIB was being supported at that time through the federal government to provide the kind of support that I needed. It enabled me to move forward and get my life together. I've been able to go on and, I think, be fairly successful. I have a wife and a couple of kids who are all sighted and I live quite a normal life as a taxpaying person. Without that support initially and without that help, I probably would never have got the courage to go back to work.
One thing that I think is extremely important is that we find a mechanism to put those kinds of supports in place so that people like me, the young people who are coming along today, and others at a more senior age who lose their sight can have the ability to maintain a somewhat normal lifestyle and continue to work and be productive members of society.
I'm going to turn it over to Cathy now. Cathy has a couple of other stories to tell.