October is World Blindness Awareness Month and today is World Sight Day, designed to bring awareness to the spectrum of visual diversity. Join CCAI in celebrating our precious adopted and waiting children who have vision differences!
Read below about the Puls family, who adopted a son named Mo with low vision from Taiwan:
Adopting a child, especially a child with a specific need will change you. We adopted a child with a vision impairment two years ago. When we started the process, I thought the vision issue would be a bigger deal, but it’s not something that worries me anymore. The hardest part is watching my child work harder than his peers or struggle with more manageable tasks for other children. Having a blind or visually impaired child makes you see the world differently and allows you to notice things you may not have noticed otherwise. Communities have many resources, and local schools have assistive technology that can help children. Some great teachers and advocates want to help, so we’re not navigating alone. Our child has low vision, but his daily life isn’t impacted thanks to magnifiers and other technology.
Adopting has changed our life for the better. Someone else’s story is now part of you, and you’re never the same. The world as you know it is a different place – a more important place, a more nuanced place, a more broken and yet beautiful place. Because of that, the wins and successes are super high. Blindness, low vision, or vision impairment do not equal a lower quality of life – it’s just different. As I watch my kid run on the soccer field, I don’t think about his vision impairment or fear for his future. I think about how my kid is thriving, happy, and healthy. His teammates and coaches are lucky to know him and they’re learning tolerance, acceptance, and inclusion. I’m so thankful he is ours. We could have missed this, and instead, we get to live it. What a gift!
If you are interested in adopting a child with a visual condition, email us at mail@ccaifamily.org. To learn more about our Taiwan program, email us at Taiwan@ccaifamily.org or click here.
If you would like to know more about World Sight Day or Blindness Awareness Month, click here.
#CCAIfamily #WorldSightDay #BlindnessAwarenessMonth #LoveYourEyes #WeCouldHaveMissedThis
