Cool Tactile Guiding Paths for Blind People
Tactile paths for blind people are popping up all over the world! I loved feeling them under my feet. Strangely, some paths abruptly end for no reason. Tactile paths can't replace canes and guide dogs, but many communities don't have blind travel instructors.
Lara Guide Dog School provides orientation & mobility training to blind people in Greece. I hope every blind person around the world will one day have access to cane travel or guide dog travel classes.
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Transcript for video titled, "Cool Tactile Guiding Paths for Blind People."
Scene: Haben, a Black woman with long dark hair, wears a blue dress, a denim jacket, and walking shoes. Her German Shepherd Seeing Eye dog is beside her. They're on a sidewalk with yellow lines running down the middle. A short wall separates the sidewalk from the churning sea. Haben's hair is blowing in the wind, and there's a sprinkling of rain.
Haben: Five raised lines run down the middle of the sidewalk. I find them through my shoe and then gesture for my guide dog to start walking.
Scene: A close up of Haben speaking. The sun warms the tree-covered hills dotted with white houses.
Haben: I'm standing here in Crete, with green hills behind me. When I was filming that walking path,
Scene: Haben and her guide dog walking along the sidewalk by the sea.
Haben: we were over by the sea and it was a stormy day. So lots of large waves in the sea. Those tactile paths are popping up all over the world and not just in Greece.
Scene: Back to the sunny day.
Haben: And they're a cool feature, but it's not enough. It's really important for blind individuals to have cane skills, mobility skills, guide dog skills, because those tactile paths are actually quite rare and you need to be able to move off them.
Scene: Haben and her guide dog are on the sidewalk by the sea. The yellow lines abruptly vanish.
Haben: I feel for the path with my shoe, but it's gone!
Haben (with a playful smile): Seems like the path ends here, so this is where blind people stop.
Scene: Back to the sunny day.
Haben: Right now in Crete there are no mobility instructors for blind individuals. So if a blind person wants cane instruction or guide dog instruction, they have to go to Athens. And all of Greece only has nine mobility instructors. That's not enough. And this is a problem throughout the world. A lot of blind people struggle to get access to mobility, orientation and mobility instruction.
That needs to change. Lara Guide Dog School in Athens is providing guide dog training and cane travel instruction for blind individuals. In Greece, though, there's, there's a need for more instructors and more support for the school. And I hope we can get more support for mobility and orientation and mobility training all throughout the world. So blind people can have more freedom.