Teen creates connections for youth with visual impairments

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This article was published 27/02/2022 (1327 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In a time of widespread isolation, a Manitoba teen decided to find a way to help other kids feel less alone.

Fourteen-year-old Taliah Braun set up her own online social network – a website called Vision Village – for youth with visual impairments.

Braun was born with pediatric congenital microphthalmia, a birth defect that meant her left eye didn’t fully develop. She is blind in that eye and wears an artificial one, but she’d never met anyone else who could pop out their prosthetic – a special ability she soon learned some kids would interpret as creepy. Most would never know what it was like, for example, to take out their glass eye at the park and accidentally drop it.

The Niverville teen wanted to talk to someone who knew exactly what it was like, as Taliah puts it, to have a “visual difference.”

“For me, I would say, it just was a deep loneliness, and I think it was a struggle for years,” she said.

Her parents and friends were supportive, but they hadn’t experienced blindness and could only imagine what she was going through.

During the pandemic, Taliah realized the kind of platform she was searching for, one that would connect her to others with her condition, didn’t exist.

“And then this idea kind of popped into my head: ‘Why don’t I make it myself?’”

So, after a couple of months of practising web design, Vision Village was born. The site has been up and running since late May 2021. The Grade 9 student included a pen-pal-finder for like-minded kids, bios of herself and the team of ocularists who’ve cared for her, and her favourite section: the Inspiration Corner. In it, she shares a short video of her own story along with photos of her prosthetic eyes, and encourages other kids to get involved.

(Kids aged six to 16 who have visual disabilities can become members of the site with their parents’ permission and can email to request a pen pal).

“It’s supposed to be a safe place, so we try to keep it pretty kid-friendly and through the parents, mostly, so it’s safe for everyone to use,” Taliah said.

Eight kids are members of the site now, with more in the process of joining, and Taliah has connected a couple dozen pen pals, most in Canada, and a few in the U.S.

Since she started the site, she’s felt less lonely.

“It has been a huge encouragement to me,” Taliah said. “I’ve definitely felt much less alone and connected to see that there are so many other kids, even around our area and Winnipeg area and Steinbach. There are so many kids living with different visual disabilities, and yeah, it has definitely encouraged me.”

She’s been able to meet up with a few other kids in Manitoba since launching the website.

Although her family and other friends tried their best to understand her experience, it’s not the same as talking to people who’ve been through it. “There’s just something surreal about connecting over the same thing. You really do feel seen and understood.”

Taliah said she’s happy to answer common questions about her condition – she’s used to doing that — but she wanted to create a space where kids with disabilities could get to know each other, not for an outside audience.

“I wanted to take something that was hard for me and help it not to be hard for others,” Taliah said.

Her parents, Svea and David Braun, said their daughter’s project is just one example of the confidence and motivation to bring people together that she’s shown since she was very young.

“Taliah’s just a go-getter. She has more initiative than probably our entire family put together,” Svea Braun said with a laugh. They agreed the project has been an antidote to the loneliness that seems so universal right now.

“It really is about focusing on other people, not focusing on myself, and I think whenever you do that, loneliness has less of an opportunity,” David Braun said.

Taliah said she has big dreams for what Vision Village can become.

“It’s been such a cool project to watch unfold,” she said. “I have lots of work that I put into it, but I still have lots of dreams of what I want it to become. Eventually, it’d be cool if there were (kids) all over the world who are able to connect there.”

Vision Village is at: www.wearevisionvillage.org

katie.may@winnipegfreepress.com