Every year during the Disability Awareness Week, Stage 1 receives two very special visitors, Paqui and her dog, Meadow. Many children who have passed through Early Years have warm memories of the day Paqui comes and explains in first person, what it is like to be visually impaired, how her amazing dog is trained and how we have to respect that she is a “working dog”.
Today, we found out how Paqui manages to conquer her visual impairment with many great abilities: the ability to read using her fingers (braille), the ability to move around with the help of her guide dog, the ability to tell the time using audio cues on her telephone, for example.
Paqui very openly allows all the children to ask her questions about what it is like to be blind and she is eager to correct misconceptions and teach us things that we genuinely never knew before. It is a great opportunity to come up close and understand that everyone’s differences is what makes them awesome.
Spending time with Paqui is an act of mindfulness in itself. It helps us to be grateful for all of our own wonderful gifts and also appreciate the generosity of her time, effort and energy in sharing her important message with our Stage 1 students.
