Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Aug 27/99) - The Inuvik branch of the Canadian National Institute of the Blind has proved it has vision.

It recently staged a five-day workshop to help individuals with sight impairments gain the skills they need to cope with daily life and also to gain valuable computer experience to assist them in shaping their future.

Regional director Christine Vernon said there are 140 CNIB clients -- people with seeing disabilities which range from poor to total blindness -- across the territory and approximately 15 in the Mackenzie Delta. Four individuals from Inuvik and Aklavik participated in last week's workshop.

"The people who came here have an interest in computers," said Vernon, "and this project focused on people of working age."

Vernon said the computer focus is the result of recent software developments -- including ZoomText -- which increases the size of type and graphics on any computer program by six or seven times or more. Vernon said the important difference between programs like ZoomText and simply increasing the font size on a regular word-processing program, for example, is that ZoomText also magnifies all of the command boxes and menus and the cursor. Such details are essential for someone with impaired vision.

But for some of the participants last week, everything to do with computers was new. Several were simply getting used to the menus and then practising their typing skills.

William Peterson had his font size set at five times larger than the typical 12-point setting and said he was feeling pretty comfortable with the computer.

"We have one at home, but I've never used it," he said. "My wife and son do all my reading for me."

William's sister, Pauline, was also at the workshop. A third-year academics student at Aurora College, Pauline said she hopes computer skills will assist her in getting into the college's Criminal Justice certificate program. She also wants to pick up her speed.

"I can do some typing now, but it might take me half a day to do one page," she said.

Vernon said the one problem with ZoomText is its cost -- expensive at around $950 a copy. But she said that with the help of regular CNIB sponsors like the Inuvialuit Regional Corp., the Lion's Club, the Gwich'in Tribal Council and the federal government, the institute might find ways to assist individuals or schools that want to purchase it.

But computers weren't the only subject covered during the workshop. Christine Heard works as a rehabilitation instructor with the institute and came up from Alberta to teach the participants also how to read braille -- the sightless system of reading patterns of raised dots on paper.

After wrapping up the Inuvik workshop, Heard intended to make her way back south -- stopping in Fort Good Hope along the way to lead a living-skills workshop.