Freedom for the blind: the secret is empowerment

American Rehabilitation,  Autumn, 2004  by Allen Harris

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The book details the philosophies, training techniques and the methods that go into the empowerment model and also explains the role a state's separate agency for the blind could play in the process. Given the right kind of training, the average blind person--not merely those whom some observers mistakenly perceive as the "superblind"--can compete on terms of true equality with his or her sighted peers and can become a taxpayer rather than a tax user. Omvig believes that, far from wanting to whimper, "I wonder what it would feel like to be free," the empowered blind person will want to climb the highest mountain and shout, "I am free! I know what it feels like to be free!"

Omvig is a blind attorney and rehabilitation professional from Tucson, Arizona. He spent most of his professional career working with the blind, and in retirement he continues to do consulting, evaluating, writing and teaching in this field today.

He became blind as a teenager due to Retinitis Pigmentosa (a degenerative, retinal disease referred to as RP). After several years of struggling with extremely limited vision while in the public school system, he transferred to a residential school, the Iowa School for the Blind. He graduated from high school in 1953.

Eight years of idleness followed Omvig's high school graduation. Then, in 1961, he became one of the early students in the Adult Orientation and Adjustment Center newly created and directed by Dr. Kenneth Jernigan at the Iowa State Commission for the Blind. He went on to complete college and law school, and then he worked in Washington, D.C., and New York City as the first blind attorney ever hired by the National Labor Relations Board.

COPYRIGHT 2004 U.S. Rehabilitation Services Administration
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group