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Blindness No Barrier To Success

”If you’re a carpenter and you
cut your finger, you don’t stop
going to work - you just find
way of grabbing the hammer.”

(Bennet, as cited in RNZFB, 2007)


The purpose of this essay is to discuss the people with blindness or visual impaired as a sub culture within New Zealand. In this essay, we are dealing with the social attitudes in caring for blind or visual impaired people. The Annison, Jenkinson, Sparrow, Bethune, (1996), define a blindness ”as a limitation in one or more basic functions of the eye or visual system. The most commonly considered visual impairments are impairment of visual acuity(sharpness or clarity of vision), visual fields and colour vision” (p.180) Blindness may be caused by injury, infection disease, tumours or as a result of the aging process. This essay will discuss the sub culture of blind or visual impaired people through reviewing the history, lifestyle in today’s New Zealand society and special legislations provided to assist them with the social integration.

In 1839 migrants began coming in New Zealand. During period of colonisation, development and wars the people with blindness or visual impaired went unnoticed. These people were supported by their families, private charity or through independent means. In 1873 the government took a census of the deaf and blind to establish their numbers and condition, and to provide assistance. “As a result, in 1874 the Council declared it desirable that an industrial school for the death and the blind be established” (Newbold, 1995, p.18) but the plans were shelved. In 1890 ““The Jubilee Institute for the Blind” was opened for the purposes of providing education and craft instruction to the blind.” (Newbold, 1995 p.20)
In 1938, the Labour government enacted the Social Security Act, “which, among other things, introduced...