Marco, trainee editor of La Voz: "This is my day to day with a 9% vision"

XAIME RAMALLAL

There are many obstacles that I have to overcome in my routine, physically and mentally living day by day with visual impairment. I am an intern at the Viveiro delegation, and here I narrate my most personal story

Aug 28, 2021. Updated at 1:13 p.m.

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My full name is Marco Samuel Pereira Oliveira and I was born in Xove, A Mariña council, in 1993. Although it is true that each person with low or no vision will have their own, here I will tell you about my experience. I intend to show how a visually impaired person lives, their day to day and routine from a different perspective. I have also been doing it since my internship this summer at the La Voz de Galicia office in Viveiro. Curiously, the same edition in which my birth was the protagonist, occupying pages of the newspaper, even covers, as a result of a whole social and solidarity response to raise funds for an operation that required my eyes when I was just a baby. Life has brought me back to La Voz de Galicia, but now to be the one to speak in the first person... And write about myself, helping to discover other realities.

As far as my school stage is concerned, from an early age I was able to get ahead despite the difficulties throughout all these years. I started school in preschool when I was five years old, after two previous ones in nursery school and then, starting primary school a year late (they alleged adaptation issues, among others). Obviously, it was something different from what the rest have experienced, since I could not enjoy some games that my colleagues did. Although I have been lucky that ONCE (Spanish National Organization for the Blind) has always supported my educational development, providing me with all the tools I have needed, such as books in Braille, as well as other types of materials for subjects such as mathematics. However, that support always continued in the secondary cycle and later in high school. A time when a support teacher or PT has always held out my hand. I remember Leonor Llenderrozas or Cristina Ramudo until finishing the higher cycle of Administration and Finance, four years ago. Now, I am studying Journalism at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC), demonstrating once again that a multitude of physical and psychological barriers can be broken down when pursuing any dream.

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And I have mine too.

Both when carrying out my work, as a trainee journalist at La Voz, and when studying, I use the computer as a tool (I've been using it since the first year of ESO) and thanks to VoiceOver, a screen reader that describing the contents of the screen using a voice synthesis (in Windows there are others, such as NVDA or JAWS, that perform the same function), which allows me to use it like any other person. The same, with the mobile, since both iOS and Android have their screen readers. At work in the office I don't find too many difficulties, although for obvious reasons I can't use the desktop publishing programs, so I write the news and interviews in Word, needing another editor to prepare them on the page, to publish, like this one. Another tool that makes my day-to-day life easier is a device called a “braille display”: it converts any text into that language.

I open now, literally, the door of my house. Forward! For someone with a visual disability, it is important that things are minimally ordered and that if the placement of the objects is changed, it is with prior notice, so that I can know where what I am looking for is. Thus, the clothes are classified by tips, that is, a row of pants or a group of t-shirts with summer and winter sections... Here I will tell you a little secret: my visual rest allows me to distinguish colors, so I don't find big problems when it comes to combining some clothes with others, but it is true that each blind man has his way of distributing or identifying clothes. More accessible townsIn my daily routine I have no choice but to overcome difficulties that for many other people simply do not exist. Just the fact of living in A Mariña or a city like Compostela is quite a challenge. Speaking of how I can go from one place to another, I verify that, for example, the level of transport in Mariña could work better, not so much within the coast of Lugo as outside it, until I make others reflect on how or how much they are fulfilled. basic accessibility regulations in urban areas, which is a generally pending subject. An exception would be Burela, for me an example of how the rest of the town halls in the area should be, with sound traffic lights and zebra crossings correctly indicated on the sidewalks, with a special relief so that I can see it without problems with the cane. At Xove, I requested this type of traffic light a long time ago, but of the three that were available, only one works. And when I walk down the street I have to find my life so as not to bump into anything, like the typical gardeners. Very pretty, but if we add to them, next to it, a bench and some other element, walking is an odyssey for me, avoiding obstacles at every step. Of course, it is the ideal environment for those who practice parkour...

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