AFB Blog

AFB staff and our colleagues Alison Burke and Toya Dubin were honored to participate in NYC Digital Humanities Week. We shared our work to make the Helen Keller Archive as accessible and user-friendly as possible, and freely available to educators who want to teach their students how to use primary sources. Helen Keller was a leading advocate for people with visual impairments, and likely the most famous person with a disability in the 20th century. She was also a devoted New Yorker! Helen,…

As part of the digital lifestyle magazine Bold Blind Beauty’s monthly “Men in Motion” series, Dr. Kirk Adams was the feature story for the February 2020 edition. In it, Kirk discusses his employment journey, learning to read Braille at a young age, and who were some of his biggest influences, among other topics. “Really, what’s next for me and for AFB is to change systems,” Kirk says in the exclusive video. “To eliminate barriers, to create opportunities, to understand where we can focus our…

Every day is a good day to show appreciation for the mentors who have helped you along the way. But during National Mentoring Month, January 30th is set aside as the official “Thank Your Mentor Day.” This day is especially close to my heart as we approach the official kickoff events for AFB’s new Blind Leaders Development Program, and we’re honored to feature Derek Shields on the AFB blog to ask him about his own experiences with mentoring. Derek is president of ForwardWorks Consulting, LLC…

On January 17, Huntington, WV-based Marshall University announced that Clio, a free history-based mobile app and website founded by the university, received a nearly $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to improve its accessibility for users who are visually impaired in collaboration with AFB. Drawing on AFB’s experience developing the fully accessible Helen Keller Archive, and the organization’s deep commitment to helping other organizations reach their digital…

You probably already know that developing, building, and supporting an inclusive organization begins with leader-driven awareness, and requires perpetual action and adaptability as market demands change. Let’s address an unsung hero of successful disability employment programs: procurement. Procurement is an essential component of business operations. Some of the “minor” elements procurement is involved in and can influence include: Profit: purchasing services/goods at the best price…

As the holiday season approaches, many of us find ourselves looking for gifts for family and friends that are thoughtful, meaningful, and useful. For people with parents on their gift lists, we want to get something that will make their lives easier or allow them precious moments of self-care. For sighted people who have a parent who is blind or has low vision on their list, choosing the perfect gift can be particularly confusing. Perhaps you love your child’s new booster seat, but is it…

It was Thanksgiving 1941, and Helen Keller gave a lecture in Knoxville, Tennessee. She used the occasion to speak about the importance of education and employment for people who are blind. She took the opportunity to deliver a Thanksgiving message, remarking that despite “so much sorrow in the world, there still is so much to be thankful for—brave hearts and minds which understand that only through freedom can mankind truly live.” Just ten days later, Pearl Harbor was attacked and the United…

Over the past several months, AFB Policy and Research Advisor Sarah Malaier and I have researched and analyzed a wide variety of nationally focused employment programs for people with vision loss. The purpose of this project was to understand what types of programs are available to blind and low vision people who are looking to find employment, retain employment, and advance in their chosen career fields. Just as importantly, if not more so, we wanted to identify what services and resources…

The American Foundation for the Blind was founded in 1921 to advocate for soldiers blinded during World War I. The organization was formed with the support of M.C. Migel, a philanthropist who wanted to help the large number of veterans who lost their sight in the war. Under his leadership, AFB began its mission to: provide a national clearinghouse for information about vision loss create a forum for blindness service professionals generate new directions for research represent the needs of…