D.C. Summer Program Helps Visually Impaired Teens Practice Independence

D.C. Summer Program Helps Visually Impaired Teens Practice Independence

from wamu.org

On a recent morning, 17-year-old Brendan Friedrich splashed water on his face, applied shaving cream, then slid his hands around the counter to locate his electric razor. He grabbed it with confidence, and shaved his face. Although his bathroom has a mirror, it isn’t any help to Friedrich, who is blind, so he rubbed his cheeks to check for any missed hairs. A few minutes later, he reached for his red and white cane and headed to work at his internship at Catholic University.

Friedrich was born with a recessive genetic condition, but he said that his blindness hasn’t limited how he thinks about the future — if anything, it has caused him to think more broadly.
“I don’t really let it hold me back from anything,” Friedrich said. “I am doing everything else that other people would do, so I’m kind of just letting that take me forward.”

This summer, Friedrich joined seven other Washington-area high school students with visual impairments in an employment program run by Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind (CLB). For three weeks, the students live in Catholic University dorms, work in internships and learn independent living skills. The program’s organizers want to create a path of independence for young people who don’t get many chances to prove their capabilities.

“The goal of the program is for the teens to leave with more confidence, greater self-advocacy skills, more training, and to have a keener sense of what they want to do after high school, what they want to achieve in their career path and what skills they need to make that happen,” said CLB’s Jocelyn Hunter.

The program also works to dismantle barriers to employment.

“Often, we hear stories that employers are not willing to hire individuals because they have misconceptions about their ability to perform, accommodations that they made need,” Hunter said.
Even when people with visual impairments do get hired, they often make less money than their coworkers. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire found that in 2016, D.C. residents over 16 years old with disabilities earned an average of about two-thirds of what people without disabilities made.

Getting real life skills

The program helps teens think about career options by placing each student in a professional internship with a university, Metro or a government agency or CLB itself.

Friedrich said that answering phones and talking to callers at his internship was not only work experience, it was vocal practice. He plans on pursuing a career in broadcasting.

“I was kind of born with this kind of voice and I want to use it,” he said. “Radio, narrations, public address announcing, like for a sports team.”

Friedrich works on perfecting his voice year-round. A rising senior at Heritage High School in Leesburg, Virginia, he is the announcer for the Heritage High Lions during their home football, basketball and baseball games.

“They call me the voice of the Pride,” he said, adding that he listens to radio sport programs every day to pick up tips.

Friedrich is the only blind student at Heritage, which he said can feel pretty isolating. Participating in the CLB summer program allowed him to experience something he didn’t get in classes or at home.
“It’s given me a new avenue to what working is like,” Friedrich said. “It also gave me the opportunity to meet new people who have the same disability that I do.”

One of Friedrich’s new friends is Liliana Gillespie from Silver Spring, Maryland. Gillespie, who is also 17, is visually impaired and wears glasses to help her see. This was her second year in the program, and her second time interning with Metro’s disability services department. She helped research how the transportation system can better accommodate people with visual impairments.
“I find that transportation can be difficult, like seeing signs or knowing cues from helpers at stations,” she said.
Gillespie said she used to feel embarrassed when using accommodations like magnifying glasses, preferential seating or large print.
“I used to want to be quote-unquote normal in a way to other students who didn’t have to use these things,” Gillespie said.
Working with Metro gave her a boost of confidence and helped her embrace her lack of vision.

“I saw a very successful lawyer who was deaf, blind and in a wheelchair,” she said. “And seeing something like that, seeing somebody who has so many odds stacked against them but is so successful, has helped me to realize that in the end, if I don’t use what’s available to me, I’ll have so much more trouble getting where I want to be.”

Celebrating accomplishments

At the end of the program, students, parents and friends gathered inside a church on the Catholic University campus for a ceremony to celebrate their accomplishments. Each student received a certificate of completion and reflected on his or her experience. When it was Friedrich’s turn to speak, he walked up to the podium on his own. From across the room, his dad, David Friedrich, watched the moment with pride. He said the program had given his son a chance to grow without the safety net of his parents’ help.

“Every day that goes by you get excited to see what they’re capable of doing,“ David Friedrich said. “Having the opportunity to do it, and to show that they can do it is the biggest excitement for us.”
Brendan Friedrich stood at the front of the room with a grin on his face. He reached for his certificate then turned to the crowd. He said one of the highlights of his internship was being trusted — from the outset.

“Day two of my internship, Phil, the director, basically said, ‘You’re holding down the fort, you’re answering the phones, you’re taking over because we have to leave.’ I really like that he trusted me even though we only worked together one day,” Friedrich said. “And I really appreciate that.”
As the applause died down and the ceremony came to a close, program coordinators hugged each student then handed out goodie bags filled with tools the teens had practiced using, such as a board to help fold clothes and knives sharp enough to only cut food. The students dumped the bags onto a table, touching and admiring each item. They were small gifts to help remind these teenagers to keep dreaming big.