Outlook on Radio Western

During National Volunteer appreciation Week, held every year at this time in April, we’re pleased to feature one of the kindest, friendliest people we know who’s volunteered for years. We first met this guest at a Canadian Federation of the Blind convention out in B.C. and we greatly appreciate her support of this show. This week on Outlook, we speak with Nancy Gill, a mother and now newly a grand...

We spoke to this guest on a Sunday night/Monday morning, all the way from Australia. This week on Outlook we hear from author, mentor, public speaker Maribel Steel about motherhood while losing her sight, about her book Blindness For Beginners, and she even gave us a demonstration of a handy little gadget called the PenFriend. With her guide dog by her side, Steel is always open to the possibiliti...

We’re back for our first Monday Mixed Bag show, live in studio, since early February. This week on Outlook, we make sure to mix in the silly stuff, the light stuff, in with some of the more serious, the sad things like the death of a recent guest, John Rae. Just goes to show, don’t put off something to next week that you could do today. We share a braille alphabet song to kick things off and discu...

Alexa was out window shopping during her final year of studying fashion in Toronto when she spotted a beaded jacket and had an “Aha moment.” Alexa Jovanovic loved fashion as a little girl, but it wasn’t until she studied it in school that she learned about a topic not yet trending on social media, not yet a common thing to see diversity boards and plans factored in everywhere, but she thought brai...

When our guest this week was a child, she’d follow a string her parents had strung up for her, tied to poles on the road between her home and that of her grandmother. She was encouraged to walk the route, but it wasn’t until later that she saw the value in the mobility cane in lieu of one. This week on Outlook we speak with star athlete Janet Erikson who competed in the Geilo 1980 Paralympic Winte...

Co-host Kerry was a sensitivity/authenticity reader/consultant on a recent project, a picture book published by Toronto’s children’s book publishers’ Kids Can Press. “My City Speaks” is a book for young readers, a delightful exploration of a cityscape, through the perspective of a little blind girl. In it, she travels her city, experiencing the sounds and smells along the way. This week, on Outloo...

According to John Rae, it was 1975 when he jumped, feet first, into the world of legislative advocacy, community organizing, and activism in the blindness community, first with something called Blind Organizing Ontario with Self-Help Tactics (BOOST) which evolved into the Alliance for the Equality of Blind Canadians (AEBC). Rae has lived all his life as a Torontonian, fighting human rights cases,...

It’s not hard to get this grouping together, to talk chocolate, so we were thrilled to speak with Ramya Amuthan and Julia Cho about precisely that. This week on Outlook, we speak with Julia, Marketing Manager of Canadian chocolate company Purdys Chocolatier about their newest reveal, the braille box, which was released to massive acclaim back at Christmas. Also, with her second appearance on our s...

Four siblings, left to play together in an empty Canadian hockey arena, while their father guards a net on the ice down below. When the youngest sibling, a boy, sticks his hand up inside one of the candy machines, the three others must soap their little brother’s hand to pry him loose. From that carefree sibling foursome in childhood to a Family Day celebrated over Zoom - approaching, pushing fort...

Author of novella Dial E for Endearment, Heidi Gray McGill says, “…When I wrote this story, I purposed in my heart to shed light on blindness in a lighthearted, relatable fashion.” The heroine of Dial E for Endearment, Everly Johnson, is a radio call-in host in the real life town of Blowing Rock, North Carolina. She’s a daughter and a friend. She may be blind, but she does not get rescued in this...

From January and Braille Literacy Month to February, the first full week in February, and White Cane Week (WCW) here in Canada - we on Outlook are back, live in studio after January and Omicron. This week we’re talking about white canes, the shame and embarrassment and also the freedom and safety they provide those of us who use them. We review the guests we’ve had on Outlook already this year, in...

Time for another Ketchup On Pancakes annual by-the-fireside lookback on the year that was 2021 and a brief look to what 2022 might have in store, both in the world and in our own journeys. KOP is the podcast we started out with before deciding to do one on advocacy specifically and we review some of the highlights of last year, Sometimes we record these yearly shows in the final days of an outgoin...

Ruth Vallis once gave a presentation to a master’s degree class studying to be teachers of the blind at Western University: “if you are teaching your blind children to read and produce Braille, I congratulate you! However, if you are not, then you are a failure as a teacher!” And some male in the audience shouted back: “Controversial, which is why we now mark Braille Literacy Month every January....

He was our final live, in-studio interview in February of 2020, right before the whole world changed with this pandemic. We had him on to discuss the guide dog discrimination he’d experienced at a gas station in western Canada while on a road trip to celebrate becoming qualified as a lawyer. Ben Fulton is back with us on Outlook, at the start of 2022, to discuss the human rights case he’s bringing...

Welcome back to Outlook in 2022. We may be recording from home once again, as COVID-19 and specifically Omicron are prominent right now in Ontario, Canada, but we are nothing if not flexible. On the first new show of this new year, we begin by emphasizing why we (two blind siblings who’ve had organ transplants) are once again mostly isolating while this latest surge crests. We know what it’s like...

Taking a bit of a break at the end of one year and the beginning of the next, but we have some bonus materials we hadn’t planned on airing, but it was too good speaking with author Dr. M. Leona Godin again and we had to share. On Outlook this week and last, we’re replaying a Zoom interview co-host Kerry did with Dr. Godin about her June 1st, 2021 release of her cultural history, an exploration of...

Taking a bit of a break at the end of one year and the beginning of the next, but we have some bonus materials we hadn’t planned on airing. It was too good speaking with author Dr. M. Leona Godin again so we had to share. On Outlook this week and next, we’re replaying a Zoom interview co-host Kerry did with Dr. Godin about her June 1st, 2021 book release examining cultural history, an exploration...

We’ve been back, doing Outlook in studio for the fourth quarter of the year, with our final official live episode rounding out these twelve months, second year with COVID-19 in our lives. This one was a musical themed episode to finish off 2021 in style and in creative expression, after recently Brian having Kerry on his music show Chin Music, from music to advocacy with songs from Ski Patrol and...

Recently, after Becoming Helen Keller on PBS American Masters aired for October’s Disability Employment Awareness Month, we asked for thoughts (from sighted and blind friends alike) on Facebook on what they grew up hearing and learning about her and one local friend had a rather intense response; he’s not alone amongst blind people either by the way. Chris commented: “It saddens me that as a commu...

Over 1 billion people, or approximately 15 percent of the world’s population, have disabilities. While no global data exists regarding indigenous persons with disabilities, available statistics show that indigenous peoples are disproportionately likely to experience disability in comparison to the general population. Indigenous persons with disabilities often experience multiple forms of discrimin...

Peter Field has degrees in journalism and English, has worked in government, and is on the board of the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians (AEBC), just one of multiple organizations offering advocacy and support to Canadians who are blind. He grew up in the Toronto area but has retired to British Columbia, just in time for the extreme rain and flooding and “atmospheric river phenomenon” that...

Content Warning: This episode of Outlook On Radio Western contains discussions of major depression and talk of suicide. We at Outlook believe these things need to be talked about more, but wish to remain sensitive to possible triggers others may have. It’s where the ocean meets the sand, where a total lack of control (like during a pandemic) can lead to a moment of clarity and the daily (or overni...

Ah, the fun of live radio. No, seriously. The original plan was to have Peter Field on live, a recent acquaintance who had reached out to us for a change, but the unexpected extreme weather, the heavy rains and flooding on the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, where Peter is located, was hit with this dramatic November weather, making connecting over Zoom to do a live interview impossible. This...

Our friend Maxwell Ivey from a few episodes back has introduced us to this week’s special guest for Outlook and we’re talking art and accessibility with this ally. Anthony Saldana has never been to Canada before, but would like to come and bring his documentary with him: Straight Off the Canvas. Saldana joins us, on Outlook today, from Queens New York where he got his Bachelor’s from Queens Colleg...

We’re back in studio, where a few hiccups happened with this one because things sometimes happen when live, but it’s a new month, the month of November, and it’s Indigenous Disability Awareness Month (IDAM). Also, Radio Western just celebrated forty years on the FM dial, and they were broadcasting live over the weekend. Both of us didn’t make it and we explain why, but we also wish CHRW Radio West...