This year we are celebrating 30 years of success as we continue to promote accessibility and inclusion for all blind, deafblind and partially sighted Canadians. Throughout the years, many members have benefitted from participating in one or more of AEBC’s programs. They have expressed how this participation has led to establishing friendships among peers, building confidence, and fostering a sense of accomplishment towards becoming self-assured advocates advancing equality and inclusion for themselves and all Canadians.
To give you a bird’s eye view into the advantages and rewards to be gained by supporting our organization, please take a few moments to meet Minette Samaroo from Toronto, as she shares her experiences and thoughts related to the journey she embarked on to effect positive changes for a more fulfilling life.
Minette’s Story
I was born in Guyana, South America and I migrated to Canada in September 2014 along with my two siblings. After a long and arduous road designed to satisfy compliance requirements to enter Canada as adults, we were finally reunited with our mother. As a result of an incurable eye condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa, I have lived with vision loss most of my life with light perception only since my teens. This would be the case for my brother and sister as well. As a newcomer to Canada, I hoped to find opportunities to help me experience independence while searching for ways to be included in a society where negative attitudinal barriers have become very much the norm in the public eye.
My siblings and I were eventually introduced to a group of like-minded people who immigrated to Canada in search of a better life for persons with disabilities. Although this was a great comfort to us, I continued to struggle to find the best fit to take my rightful place in society. I realized that to be successful in finding employment, socialize with my peers and be able to communicate at a more comfortable level, I would have to find an organization with a mandate to empower its members to utilize tools available to advocate for themselves. The Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians offered the opportunities I needed to thrive and take charge of my own destiny.
To begin my journey, I connected with individuals, organizations and programs which later would assist in upgrading my education to become more employable, as well as be better positioned to take an active part as a volunteer in my community. In 2017, I, as someone who was quiet, timid and very shy, began offering my time as a volunteer to AEBC enabling me to cultivate new friendships, while taking advantage of the support network which became invaluable as a resource to build confidence. I took an interest as a participant in the Inclusive Employment Advocacy Project, offered by the AEBC Toronto Chapter– a training program for employers highlighting the benefits of hiring and working with persons with disabilities. In 2019, just two years after joining AEBC, I assumed the role of project lead to complete the three-year contract awarded by the City of Toronto for the Disability Advantage Program, which continued the work begun in 2017. As Chapter President and in collaboration with other Chapter Executive members, I continued to proudly lead additional projects related to employment carefully crafted to bring positive results by educating employers on the impact of barriers faced by persons with disabilities.
More recently, I was the project lead for the COVID-19 Relief, with a goal to dismantling stigmas and biases faced by persons who are blind. I am now working as an Accessibility Tester for Fable and an Assistive Technology Instructor Apprentice for Balance for Blind Adults in Ontario. Most recently, I vacated my position as AEBC’s National First Vice President, to allow me more time for my part-time employment as a Sales Specialist with Apple at Sherway Gardens in Toronto and pursuing a BA in Psychology at York University. Taking full advantage of what AEBC has to offer, this year I was one of the recipients of a $1,000 scholarship towards my studies.
In my spare time, I enjoy reading audio books and I knit and crochet as well. I even have a dream that one day I could perhaps be involved in a drama type production; the closest I have come so far, was to land a non-speaking part in a movie as a court stenographer. Baby steps for everything right?
My life is very full; I strive to be the best that I can be, by focussing on my abilities rather than on my limitations caused by my disability. My ultimate goal is to remove inequality, discrimination, and injustice in order to make this world a better place for each of us. With AEBC’s encouragement to get involved in programs designed to positively address barriers causing inequality, I learned to assert my rights as a woman with a visual impairment. I acquired knowledge and experience to advocate for those who need the support to overcome challenges and am now empowered to speak to you with the belief that I have achieved a sense of self-worth, not recognized in the past.
My sincere thanks go to AEBC leaders as I credit them wholeheartedly for having the vision to offer members the opportunity to learn as much or little as they wish, in order to find and maintain independence, feel included in our respective communities and speak on our own behalf when appropriate, in the hopes that our future will not be burdened by systemic barriers.
When you choose to donate to the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians, you will be contributing to the equality and inclusion of many other individuals like Minette.
We thank you for stopping by to hear what we have to say and we hope you now have a better understanding of who we are and the value of what we do for blind, deafblind and partially sighted Canadians.
