Blind World 101

Malthe Jepsen is a 30-year-old musician living in Aarhus. He was born blind, though this fact does not stop him from enjoying life like any other man his age. Despite not having light perception, his imagination works just fine — but in a different dimension. Instead of picturesque views, Malthe thinks of geometric shapes, textures, and sounds — things we all experience daily, but do not always pay enough attention to.

Malthe recently finished his Master’s in jazz performance at the Royal Academy of Music. Now he works full-time as an IT consultant, focusing on accessibility auditing. In his spare time, Malthe enjoys long walks, reading, hanging out with friends (including some quality time with his bandmates), and travelling.

He has spent most of his life on a par with sighted people — and it requires keeping in step with modern reality, this is when technologies come in handy. Malthe mentions what a great job Apple has done in terms of accessibility — he can use VoiceOver to chat with friends, check if he has new notifications, or scroll through social media. FaceTiming can also be very useful — especially while choosing the correct colours of clothes for a concert or doing grocery shopping. Although the latter does not happen that often — delivery services allow one to do shopping from home. Maps, books, useful apps — everything is stored inside of your phone, and this fact significantly simplifies blind people’s lives. Malthe still needs to use a white cane to walk, but if he is not exactly familiar with the route — his iPhone does the rest for him. Even in cinemas, he can use an app that provides an audio description of the movie one is watching — though even without it young musician’s friends are always willing to describe what is going on on the screen. Malthe says that he would love to have a robotic guide dog for good measure — so that it could roll around and guide one around obstacles. Probably the demand is not there yet — but it is a nice direction in which technologies can go further to improve accessibility for the blind.

I’ve just finished my degree and now I’m working with the stuff I really love to do. I’m surrounded by people who are wonderful. These are probably the most important parts, right? So I’m basically super fulfilled in that sense, which is great.

Malthe Jepsen

Gitte Nielsen is a vision consultant at the Center for Sight and Assistive Technology (Center for syn og Hjælpemidler) in Aarhus — she has worked here for about 15 years teaching blind or visually impaired people how to adapt to this new reality and what kind of help they can get. The Center works with all age categories of blind patients, although the majority are senior people who lost vision due to their age. Some people were born blind due to genetic diseases or lost their vision after an illness or in an accident.

Gitte mentions that some places in Aarhus and Denmark generally adapt to the needs of the blind, while others do not. There are new rules for European countries, the European Accessibility Act of 2019 in particular, that state what products and services are supposed to be accessible to people with disabilities, so the situation keeps improving. Like Malthe, Gitte stresses the importance of an iPhone in a blind person’s life — it has VoiceOver, which is great for using all kinds of apps, ordering groceries, or navigating the street. Low-vision people can use a pre-installed zoom function instead of always bringing a magnifier with them. Modern technologies also help the blind and partially sighted to get an education or to work, as almost every text is easily accessible for “reading with your ears”.

Gitte also tells about NaviBlind — a device that helps the blind to navigate. A cap with a GPS inside is put on — it connects wirelessly to the app, which guides the user through the route, metre by metre. This app keeps its users within the bounds of pedestrian areas, such as sidewalks and pedestrian crossings — which is hard to do on your own, using only a white cane (which is still obligatory even with this high-tech app). The world of the blind is still very complicated — and just as for any other pedestrian, it can be quite dangerous even if one is cautious and uses all the available tools.

There is a lot of respect for blind people walking down the road with their sticks. <…> If some other people think this could be dangerous there, they just come running to stop the situation from being dangerous. So people really want to help and actually take care of [their fellow human].

Gitte Nielsen

Some blind people, especially those who were not born this way, can experience complications and even fear when stepping outside into the world. This is when guide dogs may come to rescue — and these are not just loyal friends or helpers in terms of commuting from one place to another.

Marianne Dall is a sighted guide dog instructor in Brugernes FørerhundeOrdning — a Danish organisation established and run by guide dog users themselves. She teaches dogs (and their future owners) to commute around the city as well as communicate with each other. Marianne has always been interested in dogs and she has been training guide dogs for two and a half years now.

Blitz is a black German Shepherd, which has already finished her training and might move to her future owner as soon as next week. As any other guide dog, Blitz has made a long way to this point — first, 8 weeks old puppies start living with foster families, where they learn some basic commands. In about a year they move to a trainer’s home and live there for 4 to 8 months — depending on how successful their education proceeds. Only after that does the dog get matched with its future owner.

A guide dog is not just a helper who gets you from point A to B. Surely, guide dog users don’t waste all of their concentration and strength on just finding the way, therefore they have some energy left for work and social life. However, for some blind people, the change is even more significant. Marianne notices that when blind people walk outside with a white cane, nobody says to them “Oh, what a cute white stick you have“. However, many people mention “Oh, what a cute guide dog you have” and thus begin their conversation with the owners. There are many isolated and depressed blind people, who need this communication. In cases like this, a guide dog becomes a facilitator of social interaction.

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Unfortunately, there are still some struggles that guide dog users have to face. There are shops, restaurants, and public transport where one is not allowed with a dog, even a guide one. Besides, many people do not know how to approach blind people correctly and thus may disturb and confuse both the owners and the dogs. Although these incidents happen comparatively rarely, it is still substantial to know the main guidelines for how to communicate with the blind and their dogs.

Maybe some [enterprise owners] are afraid that they’ll get a fine because they allow a guide dog inside. But I think in general it’s because they don’t have the knowledge of guide dogs <…>. So it’s really important that they get this information on how to behave [correctly].

Marianne Dall

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This webdoc is made by Ekaterina Redkina