Don't hesitate to ask for help, legally blind student says

Auniversity student in St. John's who is legally blind says it's important persons with disabilities push for inclusion and accommodation in the classroom.

Brandon Snow, 20, was born with a genetic eye disorder called ocular albinism that affects one in every 250,000 people.

"A part of my eye is underdeveloped, which causes me to be considered legally blind," he said.

"The best way I describe it to people, what a person with 20/20 vision cansee from 10 feet away, I would have to be one foot away and that doesn't account for blurriness."

Never be afraid to ask for an accommodation, never be afraid to advocate for yourself .- Brandon Snow, legally blind university student

Snow spoke to CBC Radio's St. John's Morning Show Thursday in honour of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

Growing up in Lewisporte, Snow said he never felt like he had a disability.

"I knew everyone, it was easy to walk around ... it's hard to have any danger on a one-way street," he said.

"The only accommodations I actually needed was in school, and I had a wonderful visual itinerant, which is [a person] that helps you in school to make sure you have the right accommodations and you're doing well."

Rude awakening

Snow said he was "very arrogant" when he first arrived at Memorial University, turningdown the Canadian National Institute for the Blind(CNIB)when the group invited him to a campus orientation.

"I just didn't really think I needed it and I got to university and the first day, I did the same thing ever other first-year student does I got lost," he said.

When his computer crashed, however, Snow said he gratefully accepted help from theCNIB.

"[Someone]actually came to my dorm room, looked at my computer [and saw] if there was anything he could do to fix it."

Now in his last year of a kinesiologyprogram, Snow encourages students with disabilities to seek outthe resources available to them.

"Never be afraid to ask for an accommodation, never be afraid to advocate for yourself [advocating]is so huge today and so few people know how to do it."

"And that's not just for visual disability, for a lot of disabilities that's the case."

For Snow, separate schools for the legally blind are not the answer.

"[Otherwise]you're taking people away from the general population," he said.

"It's 2015 ... let people live their lives, regardless of what their ability is."