When 70-year-old Joe Cauchi needs to know what is in front of him, he scans his surroundings with an app on his mobile phone and a digital assistant lists all the items he cannot see due to his visual impairment.

“What you do in a second, takes me one minute – but I can do it,” he says, sitting at his desk at his Marsascala home.

He uses his voice to activate the app, called Be My Eyes, and uses a screen reader on his computer to keep up with the news and to write reports and emails. It includes the email he sent to Times of Malta in which he attached his unpublished manifesto for the blind called ‘A Journey Through the Dark’.

From the distress and guilt parents experience when learning their child is blind, to the support needed by the parents and child as they grow and transition into schooling years – the manifesto covers the needs of the blind community through the eyes of a blind person and educator.

His message is clear: blind people and visually impaired need improved, coordinated support. Children who are born blind need a more supportive education system and those who lose their vision later in life need to be taught how to cope and make use of assistive devices that could immensely improve their quality of life, he says.

Malta does not have a comprehensive register of the blind and visually impaired. In fact, there is no disability register. According to the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability, there are some 1,400 visually impaired people in Malta. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. According to EU estimates, one in 30 people suffer some form of visual impairment in their lifetime – that would push the numbers up to over 15,000 in Malta.

“So where are they? Somewhere feeling helpless,” says Joe. He notes that research shows that majority are elderly.

According to the European Blind Union, 90% of visually impaired people in Europe are over 65.

The power of education

Joe is one of those people. He started losing his vision when he suffered a stroke in his mid-40s and, after that, experienced various eye conditions including glaucoma. He is completely blind from his left eye and can see a bit of light from his right.

Each time his eyesight deteriorated over the years, he had to relearn how to navigate the world. But the retired teacher will not give up. He believes in the power of education – for all ages – to continue living the best life one can live.

“Every time you lose a bit of sight, you pass through the five stages of grief [denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance]. Each time, everything changes… Imagine someone who read all his life – unless he knows how to download audio books, it’s over,” he says.

As an example he mentions an intelligent  elderly friend who lost his vision and now does not know how to make a phone call because he cannot activate a voice call.

“The lack of independence hurts,” he says. Before he lost his vision, Joe used to like cooking but now “it is dangerous”.

Of course, solutions exist – but at a cost. He gives the example of an oven designed for the blind which he can order from the US. It is not very expensive, but the shipping costs make it unaffordable.

He also recounts how, when he started losing his vision, he reached out to local companies that imported assistive devices, but they would not allow trial models. The only option was buying devices. 

That was why he set up an NGO, called Advice, to provide such trial technology.

The NGO was dissolved during the pandemic and its assets were transferred to the Malta Trust Foundation that continues its work. 

“As I am a teacher, I prioritise children,” he says. “The NGO had organised an Erasmus programme about five years ago to understand the needs of blind children. It emerged that Malta needs an extended core curriculum.”

This extended core curriculum would incorporate pockets of time – outside of normal school hours in mainstream schools – to teach blind children compensatory skills that include braille, social skills and advocacy. He stressed the importance of teaching blind children braille as “it impacts the brain like ordinary literacy so a child can make up for access to visual literacy with access to braille”.

“The education system treats blind children as other children but does not give them compensatory skills to function well in the education system,” he says, adding that while the services existed, they were not coordinated.

But support was not limited to the young. Parents of blind children needed psychological preparation to teach them how to handle their children without getting over-protective.

And those who lost their vision later in life also needed educational support. “Most people who are visually impaired are elderly and they are the least tech savvy. Technology and AI can allow the blind to ‘see’ and read. We need improved access and awareness of assistive devices… There is no organised way of teaching these life skills,” he says.