People write blogs as a way to express themselves and their knowledge or expertise. People read blogs as a source of information or because they find the writer interesting.

Blogs are extremely useful, both to the writer and the reader. The writer may have a lot of knowledge to share, and the reader may want an informal way to learn about a topic. Some people use blogs to find other people with similar problems, issues or situations

Blogging is an excellent way to keep your writing skills sharp.  It’s also a great way to interact with people by posting on forums, discussion lists, networks & other larger social media sites, such as twitter & facebook, to educate, advocate & learn.

It’s a great way to find out new and informative information

A blog is a valuable asset to our organization. It gives us the opportunity to establish ourselves, it gives us a platform to network with your peers, fellow organizations, and general public and allows allows us to generate buzz in social media.

You ask, what is social media? In short, social media can be defined as interactive platforms via which individuals and communities create and share user-generated content. 

If we can get comments on our blogs, we’ll increase our status as an organization.  The more comments we have, the more clout we appear to have, because people are interested enough in what we are and have to say as an organization, so much that people will take the time to comment  on interesting topics.

The issue of bullying is one we have all heard about in recent years. In fact, it seems as though bullying in schools is becoming an ever-increasing problem, with the media regularly telling us stories of students who were tormented so frequently by their peers that they felt that there was nowhere left to turn.

Some may argue that the sheer number of bullying-related stories is not due to the increase in bullying, but instead, a consequence of better methods we now have today to share and distribute breaking news - almost instantly - through the media and online.

Melanie Moore, an AEBC member, was recently interviewed on CBC radio concerning parenting with a disability. You can click this link to listen to this excellent interview.

One of the main points I take away from the interview is that disabled parents are faced with the default assumption that they will be unfit parents. It is only after disabled parents prove that they are capable that they are permitted to be parents. Melanie was scrutinized in ways that most parents are not, and she was permitted to leave with her child only after proving herself capable; and all of this despite the fact that it was her third child.

For those who may not be aware, a group of former students of the W. Ross Macdonald School for the Blind (formerly the Ontario School for the Blind) in Brantford, Ontario have organized and are attempting to bring a class action lawsuit against the province of Ontario.

As detailed in this article from the Toronto Star, as many as 1000 former students could be affected, and the group is seeking $200 million in damages for acts of physical and sexual abuse that are said to have taken place from 1951 to the present.

Greetings fellow AEBC members and I hope that all is well with everyone. 

Ah yes!  March is all but gone and soon April will be with us.  I hope that everyone is getting ready to have a wonderful spring. 

I would again like to thank everyone for their feedback and my question at the end of this update is an important one which I am asking you to really give some thought to.  I believe that this question will help your board to better understand what vision you seek for the AEBC.

My quote for this month is:

Time for a mild rant. Am I the only one who finds it annoying to constantly hear variations of the word blind used to convey meanings like ignorant, foolish, stupid, unthinking, and so on? It's an incredibly popular metaphor, and on a near daily basis, you can read and hear in the media some form of the following expressions:

Currently, there are three characters on the soap entitled The Young and The Restless who have had to deal with disabilities. As is usually the case, Adam Newman, who was blinded when Jack Abbott’s seriously mentally ill ex-wife threw a caustic substance in his face, miraculously regained his sight. A few months ago, he regained his vision for the first time when surgeons performed an operation which I have yet to hear of anyone else with retinitis pigmentosa having. Too bad that Adam absolutely refuses to cope with blindness.

A video of a blind man piloting one of Google's self-driving cars has swept across the Internet over the last couple of days. In case you missed it, the video is available with audio description here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?src_vid=cdgQpa1pUUE&annotation_id=annotation_979835&feature=iv&v=peDy2st2XpQ

It seems as though every dozen or so tweets I read on Twitter is another link to an article describing some new technology (for example, retinal implants, gene therapy, stem cell treatments) that is eventually going to lead to a cure for many forms of blindness. This BBC story describes the use of gene therapy to restore some vision to three Americans with Leber's Congenital Amaurosis. The media are full of similar stories.