‘Sound of freedom’ raised at annual White Cane Awareness Day for visually impaired in Hub

BOSTON — While October is designated as White Cane Awareness Month, the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind and Perkins School for the Blind chose Friday to bring its membership, local and national advocates and service providers together at the State House to mark the month and a special awareness day.

“This event is designed more as an educational day to alert people to the importance of white cane awareness and to increase the safety of the vision-impaired and blind residents,” said Michela Meaney, one of five orientation and mobility specialists working in Massachusetts. “Cane users spend hours, days, trying to rehabilitate into our world. This day provides a way to make it safer for them.”

More than 300 people gathered in the Great Hall at the State House to help extend awareness of the law that requires motorists come to a full stop when they see a person wielding a white cane or walking with a service dog, attempting to cross an intersection.

“Pump the brakes,” said Joseph Buizon, director of programs and services with the commission. Individuals who are visually impaired, Buizon said, walking with a cane or a dog, are protected under Massachusetts law. Those who fail to follow the law are subject to a ticket and fine.

He asked all those in attendance who walk with a white cane to open the tools and hold them high.

“When I hear the click, click, click of the white canes, to me that’s the sound of freedom,” Buizon said.

White canes, as their users will tell you, need hours of practice to master. They impart information to the user and communicate spatial relationships, textures, changes in paving material and irregularities in walkways and sidewalks.

“I know a white cane is so much more than a mobility tool,” said Kate Walsh, state secretary of health and human services. She called it a tool of independence and self-determination for the visually impaired and the blind that allows them to live freely and safely and participate fully in their communities.

Walsh was given a special gift to commemorate the day: a Barbie doll packaged in a box labeled in Braille. The doll was sporting a white cane and high heels; those heels were made to order, said John Oliveira, the leader of the commission, who was appointed to the job last year.

That Barbie doll is wearing high heels to counter the common misconception that blind women cannot wear high heels, Oliveira said. The commission acted as consultants with Mattel to ensure accuracy in depicting a vision-impaired Barbie.

Walsh, visibly moved by the gift, looked around the packed Great Hall and found a special child to be the recipient of the doll. Amyah Walker, 7 of East Taunton, was attending the day with her mother, Victoria, and her family. Her mother said the girl had been “wanting the doll forever.” The family held up her white cane when Buizon called for the audience to do so.

Sharing personal stories was a big part of the day. One of the featured speakers, Kate Higgins, associate director of Harvard University Disability Resources and a board member at the Perkins School for the Blind, became blind as a teenager.

“I was just looking to get my driver’s license,” Higgins said, adding that she received a white cane instead. She outlined the “long, annoying” task of learning how to use the cane, telling of countless times the tip became lodged in a crack or crevice, and times when she jabbed herself in the stomach.

“It took a long time for the white cane to become an extension of my arm,” Higgins said. She also discussed the first time she ventured beyond her cul de sac on her own with just her white cane. She made it across two streets, but it started the process of her gaining confidence “with every step,” and to learn to trust and depend on the information conveyed by the white cane.

“It wasn’t as fast as a car, but it allowed me to explore the whole world,” Higgins said. She took a minute to detour from her life’s narrative to talk about that first journey out of her comfort zone. Two neighborhood classmates took it upon themselves to walk behind her. “They coached me on how to swing my cane and yelled periodically, ‘Watch out!’”

Those shouts prompted her to question how she would “watch out now that I can’t see.” In an aside, she counseled the seeing people in the audience to be specific in their advice to “watch out!” She mentioned several instances where being specific would help a blind person understand a peril: the car that’s running the red light where you were about to cross or the person sleeping on the bench where you were about to sit.

Higgins, who uses both a white cane and has a service dog, Dodger, depending on the circumstances of her schedule, said White Cane Awareness Day matters to the vision-impaired community. The day highlights the importance of the tool that ensures all Massachusetts residents have the same access to mobility as the seeing community.

“This is an opportunity to acknowledge, champion and support the vision-impaired community,” Higgins said. “Mobility is a right to be shared by all.”