The importance of relationships when living with a visual impairment

Sinegugu Silara has been living with a visual impairment for most of her life. And it’s the little things like hopping onto a packed UCT Shuttle during peak hour and grabbing a coffee at a campus café before class that remind her that she’s (somewhat) different to thousands of other students on campus.

Her head spins when dozens of students push and shove to get to the shuttle, just to make it to class on time. As a person with a visual impairment, she could easily miss a step when she enters the bus. A jampacked shuttle also makes it difficult to use the little vision she has to find a seat. And when she finally arrives on campus with a few minutes to spare, she abandons the idea of grabbing a hot drink to exhale because reading the menu is virtually impossible.

But Silara, a second-year Bachelor of Social Science student at the University of Cape Town (UCT), presses on. She adapts to the here and now as best she can because “there’s a lot to be thankful for”.

A difficult diagnosis

Silara was four years old when her parents noticed her red, itchy eye. Thinking it’s probably seasonal allergies, they made one or two trips to the pharmacy for over-the-counter medication. When there was no improvement after more than a week, they consulted their general practitioner (GP). That trip set the wheels in motion for multiple medical specialist visits. After months, Silara was diagnosed with uveitis – swelling of the middle layer of the eye that causes pain, redness and blurry vision. If uveitis is left untreated, it can lead to permanent loss of vision.

“The silver lining is that I am not completely blind.”

“My case fell into the vision loss category. The silver lining is that I am not completely blind and that I am still able to see. I’ll always be grateful for that,” she said.

The diagnosis changed the trajectory of Silara’s life. When she was seven, she left her parents’ house in Gqeberha to attend Pioneer School for the Visually Impaired – a boarding school in Worcester in the Western Cape dedicated to ensuring visually impaired learners reach their full potential. The school is one of just a handful of schools in the country that prioritises blind and visually impaired children.

At school she was taught things most sighted people take for granted: how to eat with a knife and fork, how to do her laundry (properly), as well as orientation and mobility (a special training that helps blind and visually impaired people navigate their surroundings safely and confidently). Pioneer School sheltered Silara from the world but also provided a level of independence she would not have gained elsewhere.

Out of her comfort zone

Her school also served as a springboard for university. When she arrived at UCT “completely out of my comfort zone”, she was prepared for what was about to come her way. Though daunting – a big city with so many people in it often is – Silara adapted well. With the help of UCT’s Disability Service, she learned how to navigate campus. She quicky familiarised herself with its surroundings and learned how to get to and from class. She also learned how to use a computer and built enough confidence to jump into an Uber to explore the city.

“There really is a lot that blind and visually impaired people can do, and people don’t realise this. In the city the world moves fast, and you need to do what you have to do, or you will get left behind. As someone who is visually impaired, I need to empower myself. Doing something for the first time might feel weird, but that’s all it takes. I just need to do it once to get used to it,” she said.

Things weren’t always plain sailing at UCT. Learning to work with a scribe during tests and exams was something new. At school, Silara relied solely on braille to complete her exams, and the idea of giving someone a verbal answer to a question only to have them pen it to paper seemed strange. In addition, she said, the minimal extra time allocation (20 minutes) on her tests and exams took a lot of getting used to. But she learned to cope with both.

A socially daunting experience

While Silara performed well academically, she admitted to feeling socially excluded when she first arrived on campus.

“It’s a huge campus with lots of people. It’s hard to make friends. I can’t always see when someone smiles at me or says hello in passing, and these are conversation starters. I also wear very unconventional glasses, so people would stare at me. It’s better now but they still do. All of this made it quite difficult to build relationships,” she said.

But despite the difficulty, Silara built solid friendships and established a strong support structure in Cape Town. When she joined UCT’s ParaSport Club and participated in goalball, she also formed a deep bond with her coach. Participating in sport has given her a sense of purpose, helped her embrace discomfort and improved her interpersonal skills. No surprise that she’s an advocate for parasport. She described it as an excellent way to “get out there”, push boundaries and socialise.

“People with disabilities are often not in social spaces and participating in sport changes that. You are exposed to so much and it forces you to get out there. You learn to connect with others and to network. And in the process, you learn so much about yourself too,” she said.

“It’s a good emotional outlet and helps you understand the world so much better too.”

Ask for help

Looking back, Silara said her disability has taught her the importance of not living life in isolation.

“Relationships are important,” she added.

“It’s not easy asking for help.”

And in the process, she’s learned a valuable lesson: asking for help does not mean you are a nuisance. Instead, she said, it shows strength, humility and self-awareness, and demonstrates trust in those in your circle.

She encouraged people with disabilities to “take this leaf out of my book”.

“It’s not easy asking for help. You put yourself out there and you feel vulnerable. But I’ve learned over the years that you simply need to, whether you have a disability or not. It doesn’t show weakness. It shows strength,” she said.