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White Cane Week shines light on the challenges of living with vision loss, blindness

Click to play video: 'White Cane Week raises awareness about the challenges facing the visually impaired'
White Cane Week raises awareness about the challenges facing the visually impaired
WATCH: Dany Rizk and his guide dog, accompanied by Suzanne Cloutier from the Rehabilitation CIUSSS West-Central Montreal joined Global's Laura Casella to talk about White Cane Week which aims to highlight some of the challenges experienced by the visually impaired on a daily basis – Feb 6, 2018

White Cane Week is underway in Montreal and the CIUSSS West-Central Montreal is holding various events to raise public awareness of the challenges faced by those with vision loss or blindness.

Dany Rizk, a rehabilitation specialist at the MAB-Mackay centre in Montreal, says the visually impaired face constant obstacles, such as navigating or trying to access information. And some of their more difficult challenges are those that would be mundane tasks for those with full vision, such as cooking or choosing what clothes to wear.

READ MORE: The strange things people see when they’re going blind

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Yet Rizk, who is also a client at the MAB-Mackay centre, says there is help available to overcome those hurdles. “With rehab, all these challenges could go away.” That’s why places like the MAB-Mackay, which assists those with motor, communication, hearing and vision impairments, are so important, he says.

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“They intervene,” he says. They can help identify all these challenges and “find ways to be able to live in a different way.”

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Rizk says there is still a lot of work to do when it comes to awareness. He refers to vision loss and blindness as “living with a different ability, rather than a disability.”

“There is a certain perception about people with vision loss out there in the world that is unfortunate,” he says. “History has brought people up to think certain ways — to think that people with visual impairments are not able to do certain things, maybe they’re not able to have a job.”

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Events like White Cane Week aim to break the stigma. Some of the activities planned this week include blindfolded yoga and braille bingo.

For more information visit the CIUSS West-Central website.

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