My Youth Leadership Weekend

On May 27th, 2022 Blind Beginnings held their Youth Leadership Weekend, which I attended. I’d like to talk about the weekend, what we did, and how was the experience for me.

During the weekend, we did a lot of different activities and learned many skills. We practiced how to cross busy intersections listening for cars and keeping up with the group. We also did a “sound off”, which means that all the youth were assigned a number by Shawn. Then, during the sound off, we would call out our number to the group.

We also tried to learn how to travel on transit and how to scan our bus passes before entering the bus. For some of us, this was a new experience and everybody learned how to problem solve as the situation changes which is an important skill to have when travelling independently.

We also learned how to navigate a mall, and find different locations within it. The group also tried to get onto an escalator independently. I was a little hesitant at first, but I got some help from our volunteers that were with us during the weekend. We also practiced navigating to and around different restaurants, were we went for lunch and dinner.

I had a really an amazing experience with the weekend, because it allowed me to try new things. It made me push myself, and try new things independently. I feel like that my Orientation and Mobility skills have become even better, because we practiced a lot of those skills all during the weekend. It also made me feel much more confident in taking transit, getting used to scanning my bus pass and then finding a seat on the bus. I also gained the confidence to speak to the driver in order to ask if he could announce our stops when we were unsure.I really enjoyed meeting other people that I had only met on Zoom before, and had so much fun hanging out. I learned so much over the weekend and met many new friends.

by Leena