"Walking against the wind, without a scarf or documents, in the almost December sun, I go…."

Mulher com deficiência visual caminhando na cidade com segurança, utilizando uma bengala.

Ahhh, mobility! Being visually impaired requires you to know how to orient yourself and have the motor coordination to walk, use a cane (for those who use one), explore your surroundings, and at the same time, become familiar with or recognize them.

This set of actions is essential to living life with as much autonomy as possible, with enough security and confidence to take fewer risks.

Using hearing and smell to orient oneself, intensifying the training of the other senses so that they function like eyes, and incorporating the union between movements into daily life—this practice allows our mobility to become increasingly qualified and successful.

There's no recipe or manual: the key is practice, rehearsal. Over time, we find the best way to make it all work, understanding that there's no set pattern to follow for someone who is visually impaired.

I suggest that, in the beginning, you always have someone to accompany you.

One can start with simple games and activities, such as trying to guess who is singing or speaking in songs, movies, programs, or series; trying to identify the musical instrument to which the sound being heard belongs; guessing what object is being touched; what drink or food is being tasted; which rooms of the house are being entered and how the furniture is arranged; in short, these are some examples to train hearing, touch, smell, and taste.

From there, you begin to explore new environments, mixing walking with recognition through other senses, which makes it possible to advance the process: leaving home and practicing this, first, within my building, house or condominium, moving on to the second step, sidewalks and streets near you, the third step, going to places you are used to and then getting to know new environments. Here, you can already include training with a cane, even for those with low vision with gradual visual loss and incurable and untreatable eye diseases: I always talk about this because the sooner we start including the cane in our lives, the faster and easier it will be to achieve increasingly better autonomy, in addition to enhancing mobility. It's not a matter of negativity, pessimism or a curse, please don't misunderstand me! 😛🤣😄🙃! It's about acting proactively, preventing bigger problems later, addressing the root cause of the problem: in the best-case scenario, if you don't need to use a cane, you gain even more quality and success in improving mobility. And, in the worst-case scenario, we've already benefited from cane training, being able to use it at any time with much less difficulty and, most importantly, with greater acceptance.

So, my dears, let's intensify these practices and seek more autonomy and a better quality of life. And don't forget to have fun in the process. Life for visually impaired people isn't easy, so taking advantage of the opportunities that the dynamics and games mentioned offer is a sign of emotional intelligence, resilience, and self-respect. 😉😌😍