When Shawn Marsolais talks about the needs of children who are blind or visually impaired, she speaks from a perspective that sighted people could never fully comprehend.
The New Westminster native was born with retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that leads to loss of vision. Today, she's the manager of programs and services of Blind Beginnings, a non-profit organization she founded to empower blind and visually impaired children and youth and to support their families.
"Blind Beginnings has a no limits philosophy," she said. "We try and make that come across in all of our programs."
While everyone has limits, Marsolais said individuals should have the power to choose those limits for themselves. Blind Beginnings also tries to push kids to go beyond what they may think they're capable of doing.
"When you have a disability, people often assume your limits, and often they are wrong," she said.
Blind Beginnings offers a variety of workshops and programs for those children and their families, including parent-to-parent support programs, youth leadership initiatives, creating confidence workshops and a community discovery program that allows children to experience the world around them.
Marsolais believes that she and her family would have had an easier time adjusting to her blindness if such a program had existed when she was a child.
"I was born with a degenerative condition," she said. "I could see when I was a kid, but I was legally blind."
Marsolais didn't know she was going to go blind until she was about 12 years of age. Her parents learned of her diagnosis several years earlier.
"My parents were really young, quite shocked and didn't know how to tell their little girl she was going blind - so they didn't," she said. "Adjusting to my blindness was really hard."
Marsolais's goal is to inspire the children and youth she works with to believe they can be anything they choose and they don't have be limited because they are blind.
"It's because of that I am doing what I am doing," she said. "I do want to support those children and families in their early days."
Marsolais, who has a bachelor of arts in psychology and a master's in vocational rehabilitation counselling, did an internship at a school for the blind in England after leaving university.
"I fell in love with the kids. They were so smart and funny and talented," she said. "It created this conflict in myself. How could I love them if I could not love myself?"
In some ways, Marsolais said that being blind squelched her personality as a child growing up in New Westminster because she was insecure.
Because she couldn't see at night, Marsolais didn't go out in the evening and didn't attend parties with her friends. While her close friends knew about her blindness, she didn't tell others because of insecurities.
"I thought people wouldn't like me if they knew," she said.
Although she didn't play sports in school, Marsolais went on to become an accomplished athlete, competing in swimming in the Canada Summer Games in 1993 and serving as an alternate to the national Paralympic swim team for Atlanta in 1996.
After focusing on her career, she switched gears and returned to athletics in the sport of tandem cycling and competed in the Paralympics in Athens in 2004. She's also been involved in the national development team in the sport of goalball and served on Canada's national team.
Marsolais worked with the Canadian National Institute of the Blind's children's services division for about five years, before founding Blind Beginnings in 2008.
"I really want people to know we are here, what we do," she said of the New Westminsterbased society. "It's difficult for children."
Blind Beginnings offers programs to support and encourage blind children and their families.
"We need to educate the public too," Marsolais said. "You don't have to be afraid of blindness. These kids are really capable."
Marsolais said the goal is to find a balance between keeping the child safe and giving them the opportunity to be independent.
"Usually they are coddled a little too much," she said. "We are teaching them independence skills."
Most of Blind Beginnings' families live in the Lower Mainland, but Marsolais's hope is to be get more funding so the program can be expanded to serve families elsewhere in the province.
"Blindness is way more isolating for them," she said about people living in rural communities. "They are the only ones their communities."
Blind Beginnings is holding its Into the Light gala dinner and auction on March 10. A video about the organization, which can be found on YouTube, will be shown at the sold-out event.
"It's a really good snapshot of who we are," Marsolais said about the 10-minute video. "We created it for the gala. It is so good."
For more information about Blind Beginnings, visit www. blindbeginnings.ca.
