Unemployment amongst the vision impaired The Australian 26 March 2007

26 MARCH 07.

John Stapleton

THE unemployment level among blind or vision impaired people is more than five times the national average.

New research to be released on Monday by Vision Australia shows a staggering 69 per cent of working age vision impaired are unemployed. The survey is the largest ever done on employment levels amongst blind.

``Even well educated people who are blind or have low vision have difficulty securing employment,'' Chief Executive of Vision Australia, Gerard Menses, said.

``Sadly, many end up de-motivated and give up searching.

``To be unemployed is an issue for anyone, but when you are a community that is to a degree different from the majority of Australia, unemployment further exacerbates that difference.''

One of the key findings of the report was that 34 per cent of blind post graduate degree holders are unemployed. As well 50 per cent of those looking for work had been searching for more than a year. Four out of ten said they wanted a job but had given up looking.

Mr Menses said there had been a decline in recent years in the levels of employment of people with disabilities. ``This is puzzling at a time of high employment. It is important to reverse this trend.''

Jason Merkley, 32, has been teaching English at Mercy College at Chatswood in Sydney for the past two years. He lost his sight unexpectedly when he was 25 in the space of a single day due to a genetic condition. He uses computers to read text to him and and his students, and says technology has made all the difference.

``It has provided me with independence,'' he said. ``I was working before I lost my sight, and I just could not accept that I would stay at home and not work, that was not an option.''

Mr Merkley said he was basically treated like any other teacher at the all-girls school, ``I actually have advantages,'' he said. ``I don't see the students; I never judge a student on how they look, it is impossible. I immediately hear their personality, I hear when they are nervous; when they are shy, when they are expressive and enthusiastic.''

He said the students seemed to feel it was a privilege to help him write something up on the classroom whiteboard or read out material for him. Any student who had not done their homework found it hard to come up with a good enough excuse when they were talking to a blind teacher.

Mr Merkley has worked as a teacher in Canada and France. ``When I first came to Australia I was struck by the level of prejudice towards jobseekers who are blind or have low vision,'' he said.

Mercy College Principal Ray Paxton said said they had not deliberately set out to employ a vision impaired teacher. Mr Merkley applied for the position and was the best applicant. His employment has provided no difficulties for the school. Minor adjustments included extra support with technology and raising the awareness of students to Mr Merkley's working guide dog, Whiskey.

``It has been a positive for Mercy,'' he said. ``Jason is an excellent teacher and our students are broadening their experience of the people they interact with and of people with disabilities.''