Blind students learn vital life skills at new South MS campus. What makes it different?

Antonio Williams, an instructor at the Mississippi Emerge Center, demonstrates how he teaches students cane navigation. HANNAH RUHOFF Sun Herald

The EMERGE Center in Long Beach, a total-immersive institution created to prepare blind clients to live independently, opened its doors last week with its first classes. The clients, or students, are prepared with functional skills for blindness, whether they are totally blind or have partial blindness. Similarly, instructional staff teach those students totally blind, wearing sleep shades if applicable.

Instruction includes everything from safely walking across the street to office work to cooking lasagna — and cleaning the kitchen afterwards. Those practical skills are only half the battle. Instructors also are meant to lead by example and show students what it’s like to live with confidence. That confidence is something that’ll carry with them for the rest of their lives and transcends just the tasks they’ll learn at the EMERGE Center. In the face of a world that largely doesn’t know how to treat them, students at the EMERGE Center are thrust into a program where they live with independence, albeit with reasonable safety nets. Staff will help students nearing the program’s end secure job experience and internship opportunities. Then it’s up to those students to put what they’ve learned into action as they live independently — and confidently.

It’s a first-of-its-kind, certified facility in Mississippi and one that the community needed, said Dorothy Young, the director of the Office of Vocational Rehab Services for the Blind, a division of the Mississippi Department of Rehabilitation Services.

Dorothy Young, director of Mississippi’s Office of Vocational Rehabilitation for the Blind, poses for a portrait outside the Mississippi Emerge Center in Long Beach on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Hannah Ruhoff Sun Herald

It differs from the Addie McBryde Rehabilitation Center in Jackson, the only comparable facility in the state, Young said. Addie McBryde functions by meeting clients to their specific needs, blind or not. Instruction isn’t designed around total blindness, she added.

The EMERGE Center, by contrast, is a dedicated facility only for the blind and gives instruction to its clients under the assumption they are totally blind. Blindness is a spectrum that affects each person with it differently, she noted. The program is free for qualifying clients, Young said. It keeps students who are in-state close to home and usually takes six months to nine months, though every case is different. The center in Long Beach uniquely teaches them how to live blind in suburban communities, unlike facilities clients previously needed to go to in Maryland and Denver.

THE FIRST STEP
Instructor Antonio Williams said blind people are often tempted to avoid telling themselves and others they’re blind, especially if they’re in the process of losing their vision. This is true even if it obviously inhibits their regular functions. It’s usually because they don’t want their fully-sighted peers to think of them differently, he said. That was the case for him while he was losing his vision, he said, chuckling a little at the thought of himself.

Lots of people have good intentions in the way they act around blind folks, but friends and family can often be overprotective, which leads to stunted development for the blind. Sighted folks burn themselves on the stove too, Young said. But if a blind person does it, their family will often overreact and forever push them out of the kitchen. That can create a long-term, unnecessary dependency on sighted relatives. It can also unknowingly kill the drive for those blind folks to pursue independent living and career success.
 

Dr. Fred Schroeder, a consultant for the Mississippi Emerge Center discusses how the Emerge center will help those who are blind become independent and confident on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Hannah Ruhoff Sun Herald

“Most people have humble goals,” said Fred Schroeder, a consultant who’s helping the EMERGE Center as it gears up. He’s made a career traveling the globe inspiring blind clients and coordinating with facilities like the EMERGE Center. Most blind people just want some autonomy and the ability to go outside on their own, Schroeder said.

Being realistic, it’s probably impossible to become a heart surgeon as a blind person, he said. But that’s not usually what blind folks are aiming to be. Working in information technology — one of the goals of an EMERGE Center client — is a possibility. Young says that when the time comes, staff at the EMERGE Center will ensure the student is not only prepared to interview for the job, not just general living skills.

HOW SOCIETY VIEWS THE BLIND
“We don’t say ‘visually impaired’ when someone’s blind,” Williams said. “Even if you do have some vision, if it is not reliable, then it is faulty. What’s been proven is that what you can rely on is non-visual techniques. Those are methods that have to be practiced and mastered.” Staff at the EMERGE Center said that most people have good intentions toward the blind but are often clueless in how to act around them.

Williams said it wasn’t long ago that it was an uphill battle to prove to authorities that someone who was blind could teach another blind person how to use skills effectively. It makes perfect sense to him. Who better to teach these skills than people who use them daily?
 

Antonio Williams, an instructor at the Mississippi Emerge Center, demonstrates a braille typewriter on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Hannah Ruhoff Sun Herald

“There was a time when it was assumed that blind people couldn’t work at all,” Schroeder said. “Society assumes you’re frail and need a lot of care. But we want you to think of yourself as being able to participate in what’s a very demanding program.” The EMERGE Center congregates blind people in a way that most clients have never before experienced. For some, it could certainly be their first time meeting another blind individual, let alone an accomplished role model who’s also blind, Schroeder said.

Advances in technology and remote work make it possible, now more than ever, for blind people to find opportunities that have historically been seen as impossible for them. It’s just a matter of realizing how to get students up to speed for those tasks and confident in their own abilities, instructors said.

LIFE SKILLS
The program is built on four pillars of instruction: cane travel, home management, technology and braille. A specialized instructor accompanies each one of these pillars. Williams teaches cane travel. He teaches how to find where the grass meets asphalt pavement, how and when to stop at stop signs and traffic lights and when to ask for directions. In hallways, he tells students how to be calm and not swing around their cane too far when and to go slowly on stairs. Making a mental map of their surroundings is key. He doesn’t recommend counting steps in routes because it can be limiting in the long-run.

Home management centers on day-to-day living. By the end of the class, students will have learned how to cook 30 different meals. For the final, students will prepare a large meal for the EMERGE Center’s whole staff — and clean the kitchen. They’ll also learn how to assort medication, complete and fold laundry, clean their living spaces and go shopping by themselves.
 

Renee Cornette, home management instructor at the Mississippi Emerge Center, demonstrates methods they use to teach blind students how to cook independently on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Hannah Ruhoff Sun Herald

Lots of the skills learned in home management, instructor Renee Cornette said, can be applied to all parts of life. Learning to label one’s kitchen drawers with braille stickers is also applicable to separating detergent from fabric softener. It usually just takes longer to perform these tasks, Cornette said, but that’s OK. The point is not to become a Michelin star chef, but to safely prepare sustainable meals. That’s how blind folks can avoid being burnt on the stove or by the oven. One should go slowly and hover a hand over the surface. Using tools to probe food’s consistency and setting timers is essential to not over or under cook a meal.

Cleaning the counter is a two-hand job. By using one hand to probe and another to wipe. Using a trash bin at the edge of the surface works wonders, Cornette said. She explained that there are plenty of ways to go shopping while blind, one can ask store staff for help, use a scanning app on phone to tell her the expiration date of the product she’s selected or a combination of skills to ensure she’s picked the right goods. Technology has come a long way for use by the blind, Williams explained. Most people gloss over the iPhone’s voice over feature, Williams said, but that single handedly allows for fluid mobile phone usage for users who can’t otherwise see the screen.

The technology class’s room is equipped with computers loaded with software that voices over where the cursor hovers. They’ll create PowerPoints and use email, imitating average office work. Computer monitors are never turned on. Students simply don’t need them, he said.

The braille class is perhaps the most traditional or predictable. It teaches how to read in braille and use machines to produce braille writing and notes. Instructor Andy Weller says assignments will have students fluent enough that by the end of their program, they can translate a local restaurant’s menu into braille. It starts from scratch with the braille alphabet. Andy Weller, a braille instructor at the Mississippi Emerge Center, shows off a tool to help teach braille on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Hannah Ruhoff Sun Herald

BUILDING CONFIDENCE
All of the skills the EMERGE Center develops in students work toward their total independence. That isn’t accomplished by showing a student how to activate voice over on their phone or pan fry ground beef, Schroeder said. Those skills certainly get the student started, he said, but it’s impossible to get students equipped for every possible challenge life throws at them. Really it’s a mindset. It’s achieved with perseverance and failure. “We want people to have the skills to generalize. A subtle part of what we’re trying to do is help people understand that it is not technology that makes you competent. It is a tool,” Schroeder said. “A hammer does not drive a nail by itself.”

LONG BEACH
Students live in housing provided by the program in an apartment community about 25 minutes away. Young said it’s up to students to set their alarms, get themselves ready for the day and commute, via walking, to the EMERGE Center. The center is next door to St. Patrick’s Church. A specialist living at the apartment complex is on site in the event a student needs outside help with something.

There’s no cafeteria on site. Food has to be prepared by the students in advance or ordered using a food delivery service app.

Long Beach was selected deliberately, Young said. “We call them our family here,” she said. “The community has been very receptive to us.” Young is trying to lobby for the municipal government to create sidewalks for the EMERGE Center’s clients who currently have to walk on the edge of the street. Sometimes they totally and unknowingly block a lane of traffic, Williams said.
 

A street sign near the Mississippi Emerge Center in Long Beach on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Students at the Mississippi Emerge Center walk on Long Beach city streets from their apartments to the center daily. Hannah Ruhoff Sun Herald

The EMERGE Center did communicate with the city and signs telling motorists to be mindful of the community’s new blind residents have been installed on relevant routes. The EMERGE Center currently has two students. It has a capacity for 15. Young said the Department of Rehabilitation Services handles prospective clients and has received many calls, so she’s expecting the center will quickly reach capacity. It originally opened in early March. Day programs and programs for those nearing retirement are also offered, she said.

Apartments rented by the Mississippi Emerge Center at Long Beach Station apartments on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Students at the center will stay at the apartments independently and free of charge while they learn to navigate the world while blind. Hannah Ruhoff Sun Herald
 

The Mississippi Emerge Center in Long Beach on Thursday, July 25, 2024. The center teaches blind students orientation and mobility, cooking skills, technology skills, braille, as well as independent living. Hannah Ruhoff Sun Herald
 

Letters advocating for the opening of the center line the walls of a hallway at the Mississippi Emerge Center in Long Beach on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Hannah Ruhoff Sun Herald

This story was originally published July 31, 2024, 11:06 AM.

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