Welcome to the third edition of “The Things We Miss”, a column where I share audio descriptions of interesting sculpture or structures, or anything noteworthy. Usually, as a blind person, I miss interesting features simply because I don’t see them or someone hasn’t mentioned or described the thing to me. However last year in April 2024 I had every intention of not missing something that I had wanted to see for ages. It was the READ MORE
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The Things We Miss | Part II
After my last blog-post about the ‘Perceiving freedom’ sunglasses sculpture at Sea Point I have been scratching my head furiously about what to write about next. I have so many ideas and recent experiences of interesting installations and events that I am spoiled for choice. But, as so often happens, inspiration came to me quite by accident and once again involved “the things we miss. Friday, 21 March, was Human Rights day in South Africa, READ MORE
The Things We Miss | The Wonders of Audio Description
“Wow! Look at that,” my wife says. “Look at what?” I say, expecting some sort of explanation of a visual image. “There is a guy hanging off the sunglasses!” Wait… what! Sunglasses! “What do you mean he is hanging off the sunglasses?” “You know,” she says. “The sunglasses sculpture.” “No, I don’t know,” I say. “What sunglasses sculpture?” “But they have been here for ages,” she says. “No, I didn’t know…” “Can we go over READ MORE
Lest We Forget
October is not just Mental Health Month. October is also Life Esidimeni Month. Let us hope it is Accountability Month, as well. It is now three months since Judge Teffo’s ruling that criminal charges be brought against, among others, Qedani Mahlangu, the former Gauteng Health MEC, and Dr Makgabo Manamela. The Timeline In October 2015 the former Gauteng MEC Qedani Mahlangu announced the termination of its contract with Life Esidimeni, a private healthcare provider caring READ MORE
Understanding the Trajectory of Visual Impairment in the Workplace
In this webinar, Jeremy dialogues with long-time friend and colleague, Dr Michelle Botha, about the complexities of incremental vision loss while being employed. Since both Jeremy and Michelle have significant visual-impairment, they dialogue in an entertaining and anecdotal style, providing insight into challenges and opportunities for both the employee and the employer, and highlight many hidden aspects of this mostly overlooked area of Disability management.
The Travel-Chain for Visually Impaired Persons
In this webinar, Jeremy discusses an example of the travel chain for a person with a visual impairment. Using his guide dog, and following the route from his home to the local railway station, Jeremy covers in detail the various obstacles and good access features of the journey. Using his considerable technical knowledge of access issues and blind mobility, Jeremy succeeds in highlighting the importance of recognising the significance of NMT (non-motorised transport).
The Things We Miss: Making a Case for Audio Description
In this webinar, courtesy of the Low Vision Centre of Learning, Jeremy discusses some of the realities of audio description in South Africa. Jeremy highlights how easy it is for blind and visually impaired people to miss out on so much that sighted people take for granted in film, television, theatre, art, heritage and sport. In his words, audio description is like ‘the best kept secret’ with, essentially, only Netflix offering any consistent audio description facility in South READ MORE
Perspectives on Employing Persons with Disabilities (4/4)
In this fourth and final episode, Jeremy speaks about how employers need to be more strategic about employing people with disabilities if they wish to succeed. In the previous three episodes Jeremy outlined the importance of seeing disability inclusion in perspective, taking into account three views; the legislative view, the human rights view and the business case view. In this episode, Jeremy discusses what he calls his ‘holistic disability equity approach’. He states that typically, READ MORE
But why should we make the hotel accessible?
In my last Perspectives on the Employment of Persons with Disabilities 3/4 blog which featured the podcast produced by Lois Strachan, and I discuss the business case, I mentioned a favourite cartoon which I think encapsulates the whole business case argument beautifully. Believe it or not, this cartoon was commissioned by me after this incident really happened.
Perspectives on employing Persons with Disabilities (3/4)
The business case view Jeremy continues on his theme that if employers wish to take disability employment seriously then a perspective view is necessary. In this third of four podcasts produced by Lois Strachan, Jeremy Opperman explores the business case for disability inclusion as the third part of his trinocular view model. Moving away from the other two views or lenses , the legislative compliance view and the human rights view, Jeremy states that the READ MORE