The Belize Council for the Visually Impaired (BCVI) was established in 1981 and since its inception more than 30 years ago has helped thousands of Belizeans battling various degrees of visual impairment. The services provided by the BCVI range from correcting refractive errors to integrating children who are blind into the school system. Carla Ayers Musa is the Communications Officer at BCVI.
KARLA AYERS MUSA
“BCVI works on what we like to call and what is considered a comprehensive service; so, we just don’t deal with preventing blindness and treating blindness, we also deal with people who are blind and we deal with rehabilitating and providing educational support and lifetime support for those people. There is a technical definition for visual impairment; visual impairment doesn’t mean that you are completely blind. Some people still do have light perception, some people can still count fingers that are close enough to their eyes and some people are what we consider totally blind but blindness is defined before you reach that point.”
For a new parent who has excitedly planned on a productive and successful life for their child, getting a diagnosis of blindness or visual impairment may be devastating. Musa offers hope to these parents.
KARLA AYERS MUSA
“As a parent myself, parents know what that feeling is like and just praying for everything to be fine and everything to be safe and blindness isn’t one of those things at the forefront of your mind when you’re hoping your child is going to be safe but there are certain problems that can arise that can lead to that in a baby and BCVI is here to deal with a life spectrum. So, if a child is born and he/she is diagnosed as blind, BCVI is here to provide support as early as birth, up through their childhood and basically what we are going to start with is helping the parents; it’s not an easy thing to accept and it is not an easy thing for the rest of the family to deal with as well. So, counseling is definitely something that we provide and some families are hesitant, some families are reluctant but the most important thing in the progress and in the success of the program is a supportive family and so that is the first thing that we try to work on. For babies, early stimulation is important that means that we work with them to get them to reach the milestones that any child their age would be reaching. After that we deal with orientation and mobility; learning how to move around, how to make their house, their environment and their school safe and then we have the inclusive education program to get them from preschool into primary school and onward.”
The Belize Council for the Visually Impaired has successfully developed a range of services that support the needs of blind and visually impaired people whilst also actively working to prevent eye problems that can lead to blindness. Musa told us that there are various ways of measuring the organization’s success.
KARLA AYERS MUSA
“Our rehab program is just one component of the organization but it is something that people tend to relate to more because you are looking at successful stories when you’re looking at any aspect of the rehab program and everyone knows about Rowan and all his accomplishments and Rowan and his family and the support that they give to each other is a success story in itself of what can be accomplished but there are so many other people in BCVI’s program. You look at Donovan Reneau who became blind later on in life but who is a successful radio deejay now and he loves his job and everyone sees him getting around town. There are so many different parts of our rehab program that have proven successful and I think if we can just get to the point where we are preventing blindness as much as possible yet still dealing with those who are in the most supportive way possible then that’s just a success in itself. We’re the longest standing nonprofit organization in the country. We have been established since the 80’s and I think just that time line speaks for itself in terms of success.”
The BCVI’s vision is of a Belize where no one is needlessly blind and those who are irrevocably blind are integrated as equal members in all aspects of society.
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