We're headed in a new direction!

Well, I can be excited again when someone asks me, "So, what's happening with Ability Beyond the Horizon?" Because, honestly, for the past year now, I could answer that from a business side, as in, "well we've got our 501c3 status", which don't get me wrong, is great news, and very necessary, but I started this to help people with disabilities in developing nations to find independence, and respect in their communities, as well as lead lives that the community finds valuable. To date, I've helped exactly, none. That is really hard to deal with since we're coming up on our 2 year anniversary this month. Its been 2 years since I hatched this plan in that Vietnamese cafe. I can't believe it.

So the changes:

Dr. Sandy Lewis, our secretary, met with the regional coordinator for Asia/Pacific programs at Perkins International, a group that provides early intervention services, and services for children with multiple disabilities in developing nations around the world. They are endowed by the Hilton folks, as in Hilton hotels, so have a great bit of capital behind them. Debbie Gleason, the coordinator, has been so helpful, spending lots of phone time with me, trying to get us in a good place with the early intervention project. The end result is that I don't think early intervention is the best direction for ABH to travel at this time. Kind of weird, I know, but its for the best, AND the kids I wanted to help in Hue, will still get help anyway, so its a win win. With the new direction, you all can continue to support something that is very needed, and this time that we're the only ones really doing in such an organized effort.

Perkins is working in Vietnam, not in the area of Hue, but in the major cities Hanoi, and Saigon. They will probably begin work in Hue soon, so the kids there will get help. Apparently, they began work in Vietnam shortly after I searched in 2008 to see if there was a project there for early intervention, which is how I missed them before. After coming to the conclusion that maybe early intervention was not needed in Vietnam if Perkins was already doing such a good job, I asked Debbie where she thought we could be the most useful. Perkins works all over the world in developing nations, and so if anyone could tell me a niche to fill, she'd definitely be the one. Her thinking was that orientation and mobility (O&M) was a need not being met around the world, and one Perkins is not able to fill. Additionally, teaching people to be orientation and mobility specialists, is what I do here in the states, so it fits so well.

The commitment of Ability Beyond the Horizon is to work toward empowering people with disabilities in the developing world. Teaching orientation and mobility, which is the ability to independently travel an environment, from in your home, to around your city, and thus, giving people with visual impairment access to independent living, working, and traveling, definitely works toward that goal. If you can't move independently, you can't really do very much in life. Its a cornerstone to success. Imagine if you couldn't find your way out of your house, or to the bathroom. Would someone with this problem be employable? I think not. I also think we can do something about this.

So, I met with the board of directors last night to discuss this with them. And now, Ability Beyond the Horizon will be changing course, I'm very excited about this. The plan is to go to "centers for the blind" in developing countries and train center staff in the skills of Orientation and Mobility. Its what I originally went to Vietnam to do. We will go and spend a month to six weeks, working every day with staff at the school. Our staff will train these people in how to be O&M specialists, and then supervise their teaching of clients and students in O&M to ensure competence. We will then provide ongoing support to them via the Internet, and on site visits when necessary to maintain a high level of competence and safety, as well as to train additional staff if needed.

We'll have volunteer O&M specialists here in the states that we can send to these locations maybe with an intern or two, they'll provide the training, and then come home to their regular jobs, hopefully wanting to do it again, then we can send them somewhere else in the world later. Sounds exciting doesn't it?!? I already have a few volunteers, and you'll see why soon.

I very much plan to stay in this mix of going to other countries and training, I can't let the volunteers have all the fun, and will probably be doing the training alone first, just to get the curriculum ironed out and any kinks that might come along. I teach people to be O&M specialists for a living, so this won't be difficult, but I'll need to provide support to the other O&M specialists who have never taught anyone else how to do their job before.

One of the best parts is that Debbie at Perkins International is going to put me in touch with people all over the world that have this need, these are good people, committed to progressive change for people with visual impairments. They've already been vetted by Perkins International. That is immensely valuable.

So how did we get all those volunteers? Ability Beyond the Horizon was recently the cover story for the AER Report, a publication for the field of visual impairment education that has a readership of 5000+ people. That's where all my volunteers came from. Download it here. That's me on the cover! Crazy...

So exciting changes are afoot, the website will be getting an overhaul soon, thanks to Shawn Laasch, we definitely need to change the content around. I will let you know when I hear more. Feel free to message me with any questions, words of support, etc :-) Until next time...


~Mickey

ps. if you'd like subscribe to this blog, so that you can receive updates in your email, please go to visionteachervietnam.blogspot.com and enter your email in the subscription box. Its a little clunky having to go somewhere else to subscribe, but Shawn is working on a solution for us.