When her vision began to decline in 2024, Belinda Watson found that wasn’t the only thing changing. Her easygoing, friendly personality was giving way to grief.
“Losing my eyesight was an incredibly isolating experience. Nobody knew what I was going through,” Watson says. “It’s a real loss. You go through a grieving process.”
Before coming to SCCB, Watson didn’t have any role models to turn to for guidance—She didn’t know anyone else who was blind or low vision. But over time, she realized that she could still be successful. Since she began receiving SCCB’s Vocational Rehabilitation Services, everything has changed for her.
“They taught me a new way of living,” Watson says. “I shut down when I lost my sight, but I’m feeling like myself again because I know there’s a different way.”
At the Training Center, Watson learned valuable skills like keyboarding, using Fusion screen reading software, and using a white cane to find her way. She now feels prepared to take on new challenges.
The staff she worked with at the Training Center became her role models and inspired her to continue her education. Her goal is to finish her bachelor’s degree and become an Orientation and Mobility specialist.
“I learned from so many people who have low vision who are successful. I want to be able to help people, too, and I hope to work with them someday,” Watson says. “I’m very fortunate that I was able to go to the Commission and have them teach me a new way of living.”