Tell us about yourself and the work you do at the Singapore Association for the Visually Handicapped (SAVH)!
I’m Kwek Bin and I am visually impaired myself. My eye condition is very similar to Stargardts. Mine is called Retinitis Pigmentosa, RP for short. Basically the retina deteriorates prematurely, resulting in a loss of vision
I’ve been working at SAVH for about 10 years. My main job until fairly recently was I.T training for the blind. Basically I teach people who can't see how to use computers, how to use smartphones so even if you’re blind, you can use things like email, Microsoft Word, browse the net, WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook - all these are possible even if you can't see at all.
I also provide consultation to people who are what we call "low vision", people who can still see to some extent. This group of people will usually need something that makes their screen easier to see, or have their screen’s colour scheme simplified or require things to stand out more. I am mainly focused on things and experiences which are unique to people with vision loss.
In recent years I’ve started to do more advocacy, where I talk to external parties to help them understand more about vision loss, visual impairment, our needs, and to aid people who are interested in helping us to make the world more accessible to the visually impaired. This includes improving every day tools (e.g traffic lights, public transport systems, cyber environments) for both the blind as well as the larger society at hand. I work with people who want to make websites and apps more accessible as well as helping others understand more about the visually impaired socially. So things like how to interact with the visually impaired, what to take note of when trying to interact with them.
Actually, it's super interesting that you spoke about teaching the visually impaired how to use I.T, like that was something we talked to Nicholas (Nicht Tan) about too. Do you want to share more about it? Like what it means to use I.T as someone who's visually impaired?
When you still have quite a bit of vision, you're still trying to use the computer the way everyone else uses it just that you need to make it easier to see things, so there're softwares which you can install, there're built-in options you can turn on from computers, to make things larger, to make it easier to find your mouse clicker, read text.
There’s also this thing where websites and apps must be coded to what we usually refer to as "accessibility guidelines". If they're coded properly, then a voice reads things out. Otherwise, the voice will not be able to read what's on the screen. They'll say, “button” or they won't say anything at all.
There are also a lot of things which you can't really operate if you can't see, for example, one of the biggest killers are those touchscreen ATM machines. You can't see anything, and there’s nothing that can read the screen out to you. So if you're blind, you can forget about using an ATM nowadays. For some reason, all ATMs are shifting to touch-screens. But having said that, there are a couple of banks, like POSB/DBS, who have incorporated a system whereby if you were to plug in an earphone into the ATM, a phone banking system would be activated within the ATM. Upon being plugged in, a voice will read out all the prompts to you, then you use the keypad to press for the option you want.
What about beyond navigating I.T?
Companies need feedback on their new projects and designs too, and that’s where I’ll gather visually impaired individuals to talk to them, try the system. With the Land Transport Authority (LTA), whenever LTA is about to finish building a new MRT station or bus interchange, we will head down and let them know which features are friendly, or unfriendly to the blind. We also speak to public transport operators, when it comes to training their frontline staff so that they know how to assist the visually impaired passengers better. Mobility training sessions for the visually impaired are called “Sighted Guide Technique” - where we train sighted people such as bus and MRT staff on how to guide the visually impaired as they move around.
Beyond service providers, we also produce public education materials to teach the general public on how to guide the blind around. We do company talks, school talks…
What about caregiving to the visually impaired?
The main question is if individuals who are visually impaired are going to benefit from an all encompassing type of care, where the caretaker is expected to take on all day to day requirements of the individual. Some caregivers don't feel safe leaving a visually impaired person at home because they have the mindset of, "The moment I leave this person alone they're going to knock their head against the wall or fall down because they can't see where they're going.”
That’s why mindset and knowledge are so important. It might help caregivers understand if they’re able to witness for themselves others who are visually impaired walking around the SAVH compound, or walking around in the community. The visually impaired and the blind are capable of being independent, and if others can see it for themselves, they could actually feel less stressed about trying to care for a blind person, or leaving someone who’s visually impaired at home.
For caregivers who might be feeling stressed, it could really be a matter of mindset and not trusting their family members with being independent. Paired with situations where the visually impaired individual doesn’t believe he or she can do anything, or they find everything so troublesome, they prefer to rely on the caregivers. So a lot of stress falls onto the shoulders of the caregiver. Another common situation is where the visually impaired person wants to be independent but his or her caregiver refuses to let him or her become independent because of trust.
From SAVH’s perspective, there is only so much we can do as we’re mainly focused on the visually handicapped rather than the caregivers. However, showing caregivers what the blind and visually impaired are capable of, showing them individuals who are happy and fully independent, or sharing knowledge on what caregivers themselves can do to help their visually impaired family members stay safe could help reduce stress and alleviate their insecurities. A healthy relationship between both caregiver and the visually impaired is two-way - the caregiver must learn to let go and trust their loved ones and the visually impaired individual must also be willing to learn and adapt as well.
What would you like to say about how people in general treat the visually impaired and what we can do to be more inclusive to their needs?
One thing I feel is people with normal vision seem to think that the only way to do things is to do things their way. They should learn to accept that the visually handicapped need to do things in different ways. My own experience is when my family members will say, “You cannot do this la.” Just because I can’t aim my scissors at the exact spot when I’m cutting things. But the visually impaired are going to find a way to cut things by feeling around for the right spot, carefully placing the scissors against the point and moving their finger away before actually cutting something. That’s common sense, to move your finger away before you cut something. But my family members will tell me things like, “This is too dangerous, you’re going to cut yourself.” But it’s my own finger, and I have to learn how to watch out for my own finger!
They tend to assume that just because I can’t do things in the same way as how I used to, I can’t do it at all. Granted there may be a bit more risk to doing things, I just have to be more mindful and careful when I do things. The end result for many things isn’t really going to be different if I do them my way compared to if they did it.
Another thing is that the visually handicapped do things differently with outcomes that aren’t perfect. One other thing I’ve come across is that sighted people will say, “If you can’t do this perfectly, you can’t do it.” So if a visually impaired person can’t make their bed without a single crease on it, does it mean they can’t make their bed? Or if a visually impaired can’t iron their shirt such that it’s completely wrinkle-free, does it mean that they can’t iron their own clothing? Very often, it’s these standards that the sighted use expect from the visually impaired when it’s just not realistic at all given our circumstance. It’s just basically the idea that sighted people and visually impaired people do things differently, with different outcomes that aren’t detrimental to both parties.
To me, in order to allow for the visually impaired to do things their way, accommodations need to be made. For example, if someone needs to take their medication on their own, their medicine needs to be placed in fixed locations, or maybe have ways for them to distinguish between different types of medication. One example of this in real life is our traffic lights. Traffic lights have audible signals, but because the general public might sometimes complain that these signals are disruptive to them, some traffic lights have their signals lowered to an almost inaudible volume or even turned off at certain times. But that completely defeats the point because these signals are there to help the visually impaired. By changing facilities to suit the needs of the larger population, what happens is that the visually impaired are unable to roam around independently because their environment is set up against them.
So it’s basically creating a more inclusive society not for people who are sighted, but for all conditions.
There's this idea that visibility is a social concept. Somewhere in academic literature there’s a paradigm that points to disability being a concept created because of practices in society that the larger community doesn’t want changed. This in turn makes it difficult for the disabled to do things. That’s roughly what I’m saying here with the audible traffic light signals. If the larger society is willing to accommodate, people with disabilities will be allowed to be independent. Another example would be the Human Resource (HR) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. Because these systems use systems and sites that are incompatible with screen readers, visually handicapped people are unable to use them, and are therefore unable to work at jobs that require these systems. It’s not that we can’t do our jobs, it’s that the systems required for these jobs don’t allow for us to do them.
This written interview was edited for brevity and clarity. Listen to the audio recording here.
