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We’re playing a new game called: Human Or AI Image Description, guess which (hint, it’s REAL tough) and a Youtube channel was proposed called: Watch With Oyster where you could watch her reactions to Disney films with animals which is pretty much all of them and pretty much the best, sweetest thing in the world. So, as you can tell, the possibilities for this final June episode, a mixed bag, are endless. This week on Outlook, BF Barry is joining us from the speaker in the corner, back in Northern Ireland for a bit. We, three, are still together though and discussing not only the screening of the Helen Keller documentary, “Possibilities,” at Carnegie Hall, during what is Keller’s birth month, but also we discuss the concept of open audio description and, because of sister/co-host Kerry having signed up for a summer narrative podcasting class, we talk immersive sound design on things like the BBC radio drama The Archers or the radio retelling of Anne of Green Gables, out on Audible and directed by the actor who played Anne forty years ago on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Speaking of the actor who once played Anne, Kerry describes hearing Megan Follows give the keynote at this year's virtual Annual L.M. Montgomery Conference and she also recently attended a virtual Learning Lab, put on by the Ehlers-Danlos Society to hear from those with lived experience about care models that better work for those impacted, as her and brother/co-host Brian recall what it was like being diagnosed with scoliosis and having to be treated for it when they were younger. We’re talking about this month also being Deafblind Awarenesss Month, Scoliosis Awareness Month, Pride (2SLGBTQIA+), as we head into July and Disability Pride, we remember and describe flags (tactile or no) and especially the design of the Disability Pride Flag and what the colours represent. And oh...yeah, Kerry has a bone to pick with Rick Hansen about accessibility and representation in history at the CN Tower’s Edge Walk experience, but in the meantime...which Disney movie would you like to "watch with Oyster”? And finally Brian wants to thank all who were there, at Supply & Demand, to see him and his band King Orca play their new album live. Check out the Possibilities film trailer we played at the start of the show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAtNeaxzHew

After nearly eight years of doing this, we love it when there’s firsts for this program and our guest this week fits that bill in more than one way. His name makes him sound mid evil, but he has started his own indie comic book publisher Cross Eye Comics. So it is fitting, along with having experience as a tattoo artist. When most teenagers turn sixteen and go for their learner’s permit, Doug Knight got his first tattoo because once having been treated for a brain tumour, the usual teen milestone of getting a driver’s licence wasn’t an option. On this episode of Outlook we’re speaking with artist and comic book creator Doug Knight who joins us from less than an hour north of Toronto as we discuss the fun of navigating alternative forms of transportation, public transport, to travel for the work he does in educating, engaging, and provoking thought with his art. From fine art to public art, painting murals in Ottawa and working with the Museum of Nature to working with the students at the W. Ross Macdonald School for the Blind in Brantford, Doug has received Canadian creative arts grants to further the impact he wants to have on people of all ages through his art practice. He’s a dad, an artist, and he now also works with companies who make art supplies, to test their products for universal design for all possible customers and he’s worked with brands from London, England all the way to Australia. Knight shares with us his achievements, coming from a childhood often spent at the Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto and a lot of his work in the comic book world is inspired originally from his days in hospital, celebrating the doctors in his life he remembers and the brave children who must still go through it. With our own time spent at that hospital as kids in the late nineties, for our kidney transplants, we figure we might very well have passed Doug, going up in the big glass elevator or walking through the cafeteria with our family. This is an episode of taking the negatives and turning it into something good, a piece of art that speaks to someone, a child who can see themselves in a character from the comic book world, but in there he also throws in a few stories involving his low vision way of seeing the world (laugh-about-it-later stories) entering an adult entertainment shop when in Toronto to work on an art project , mistaking it for an arts supplies store or having his paints stolen alongside the Rideau Canal. His latest project is called "Through My Eyes,” water colour paintings of landmarks through his own eyes. Check out more of Doug’s work by going to his website: https://www.crosseyecomics.com/

Our guest Mistie says: “I’m the kind of person who…if I don’t know how to do something, I usually know someone who does.” This week on Outlook we’re speaking with first-time guest Mistie Hale of "Vision through the mist a woman’s journey”, someone sister/co-host Kerry found first on Facebook where “face” is right there in the name, but we discuss getting to know people—to looking beyond first appearances and into what makes us all unique, interdependence and intersectionality, and the writer/advocate she has developed into on her social media as a person of colour, who has dealt with childhood cancer and subsequent metastatic breast cancer and heart failure diagnoses. She is broadening into sharing her voice and words of inclusion and acceptance with videos on her page now which is regularly shared several times over by other blind people and advocates online. Straight from Dolly country, Tennessee, Mistie is new to podcast appearances and we’re so glad to have her on as she shares about being born and raised in the state of Tennessee, along with going to a school for the blind in Nashville, bookended by her experiences attending school locally with her sighted peers. Hale tells us about coming to the technology/cellphone/Internet stuff later than many as we three relate on growing up without it all and on adapting along the way. For Mistie, being diagnosed and treated for neuroblastoma as a young child, she learned lessons early in life about adaptation and resilience. She describes the pressure, for example, her and her mother were under, by so-called specialists who seemed to say that Mistie’s only hope for learning blindness skills like braille was for her to attend a school for the blind and how this huge change and culture shock impacted her development and school experience going forward. She describes struggling to fit in at a school for the blind, years into her education, where low expectations were often held for blind children and where she fit in more around the staff, but still became a caretaker, free labor, for younger children at the school. We love all the weather metaphors so go and search her up for stories of trying to find acceptance, whether it’s been in her local church community or in the restaurant environment she now works in - more of her excellent perspective on the winds of change throughout her life as she openly shares her story of adversity through fighting to get her education in learning and literacy and facing discrimination when trying to teach in the School system, as a young single mother/foster parent her years of feeling her way through the homeschooling community while trying to self teach her son who was diagnosed with dyslexia and autism, and now all about her passionate work with rescuing dogs out of her own home. Stories of Mistie, making it on her own at a young age, finding her way through the mist and into the life she has now, both online and and locally in her community. Follow her on Facebook for such informative and personable posts: https://www.facebook.com/p/Vision-through-the-mist-a-womans-journey-100064748376891/

The theme of National Accessibility Week 2026 (May 31st to June 6): building a strong Accessible Canada It invites all of us including governments, businesses, organisations, and individuals to take actions to advance a barrier free country. Significant progress has been made to eliminate/prevent barriers and by continuing to work together, we can build a truly accessible, inclusive, and equitable Canada. First we consider a new one to us, a new day to focus on awareness. It's Red Shirt Day - the Day of action for accessibility and inclusion. A day when people across Canada come together and wear red to create a visible display of solidarity and to show their support for disabled people and their families to celebrate the achievements of disabled Canadians and to pledge their commitment to help create a fully accessible and inclusive society. It was the Easter Seels organization’s day and they made it a day first in 2019, but as we’re always debating about the value of these awareness days/weeks/months, June being both Pride Month but also National Indigenous History Month, we wonder amongst ourselves if this one might get too mixed up with Red Dress Day. Last year, in August, Brian and his two friends, brought together by the loss of a mutual friend, came together to record some music. It’s dedicated to "their pal Andrew” and one year ago, they had been practicing and the band (reshaped) into “the two Brian band” recorded their songs at The Sugar Shack in London, Ontario. They are now ready to play live and are doing so in London with bands Officepolitik and Hunter Gatherer, lyrics and instrumental performances. This week on Outlook we discuss things like Brian’s band “King Orca” performing, for the first time, songs from their album “The Ceramicist), while they await the release of their vinyl, and are playing live Saturday, June 6th, at Supply and Demand: top notch pizza and beer, and music also. We laugh about sighted people’s wild assumptions about living with blindness (what else can you do) while discussing National Accessibility Week and Kerry’s first Blind Beginnings Blindness 101 workshop at Oxford Tax Service in Ingersoll, Ontario and about how businesses and orgs need to go further than a simple accessibility statement on their website as we grumble a bit about a recent experience with an inaccessible spa (as BF Barry and Kerry celebrate their three year anniversary) by being apart. Also, next year Kerry will be celebrating something else, her 30 year kidney transplant anniversary. As far as blindness goes and as she shares all Kerry has learned from doing her first workshop now, as far as what we want and say on this show, we’re only looking to break the ice and for people to be open to learn how not to be terrified of blindness and for someone to “give a damn!” BF Barry’s testimony, after accompanying Kerry to her first workshop was: Positive, educational, entertaining - PS, he also says: “We are people.” What do you know, we are. We talk about what Brian feels performing in front of a crowd, as Kerry presents in front of one, and we hear about how Kerry chooses to handle these workshops on going over time, putting on a non visual presentation, and rolling in, ready to go, suitcase of supplies and props in hand. While it’s August not March, every March...2nd Thursday of March is World Kidney Day. Brian calls me “Kidney Kerr” (first time he’s saying that, but it might just stick) as we play the YouTube video/audio, showcasing things like the WHO 2025 Kidney Health Resolution, a collaborative effort, and we talk through our own kidney disease experiences as we listen. With support from The International Federation of Kidney Foundations and the Society of Nephrology, it is a global day dedicated to raising awareness - it’s the World Kidney Day 20th anniversary on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFVZo4HfDNg Learn more about the Blindness 101 workshops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QBUnMdFd_k

Nuance - a subtle distinction or variation It was an "unforgettable day of music, community, and celebration” for brother/co-host Brian, telling us about his evening out with his friend Matt for dinner at the newly open since January Hitching post Tavern followed by the Sunfest block party at London Brewing Co-Op to kick off Sunfest season and the music was Sonido Pesao, a Montreal based Latin urban / rap group. Brian likes to share with us about the shows he goes to see in London, Ontario where he lives, but a real part of that while supporting the music scene, is the fatigue that comes with being overstimulated in public settings when you live with blindness and other disabilities and conditions. There are adaptations and ways to make such things easier and we talk about some of those on Outlook this week. Navigating an open event with stalls and stages and crowds can be stressful and difficult for example, but on this episode we discuss the low tech and the high tech tools we use, for whatever we’re looking to make even a little bit easier. From the new glasses our nine-year-old niece recently got and her exclaiming how putting them on finally has made everything show as so beautiful to a new app release for way finding - it’s called NaviLens, it’s available in the UK Grand Central Station in Belfast City Center, not using GPS. We learn, also from the UK, that glasses are sometimes known as jam jars colloquially. As well, we share about something we refer to as advocacy fatigue, along with the cognitive load fatigue that’s possible as we discuss National Accessibility Day and National Accessibility Awareness Week, 2026 - as sister/co-host Kerry’s first Blindness 101 workshop approaches, just before, NAAW being May 31st to June 6th, the latter being the day of Brian’s Band King Orca’s first live show. As we talk more about AI wearables, we again return to the benefits of having one’s phone and its technology with us, monitoring medical concerns like diabetes levels or magnifying our surroundings for us, while too we recognise the toll it all takes on the environment and communities living with it. However, businesses and companies cannot get the message, just because apps are being developed and systems are being put in place that their work and effort is no longer needed and they can avoid their legal requirements and responsibilities. We don’t wish to sugar coat things, it’s more advocacy fatigue in the mix with a local spa jumping to rash conclusions, displaying pigheaded and ignorant attitudes, and automatically making a whole bunch of incorrect assumptions, without looking enough into our own lived experience as blind people, but also we who only wish to act as regular customers like anyone else. This is coming up again, feels like foreshadowing, but the whole thing reminding some of us of the advocating it took to get to experience Toronto’s CN Tower Edge Walk several years back - all these are what National Accessibility Day and National Accessibility Awareness Week are for in the first place. Spring is kicking into high gear and workshop season has begun and Kerry’s even reached out to CBC’s local London Morning for help spreading the message of Blindness 101. In the meantime, check out the video made for the workshops and her appearance on the Blind Beginnings “Limitless” podcast where she speaks with founder and program manager Shawn Marsolais and recent Outlook guest Jennie Bovard about how the year of facilitating is going: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QBUnMdFd_k https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/episode-232-blindness-101-and-national-accessability-week/id1518892826?i=1000767864001 It’s not simply an accessibility tick box somewhere, but more like a series of job interviews to get people to see that AI alone isn’t enough and that community, like the local one with the tea room that’s struggling, where Kerry and BF Barry love to go - why it all matters, in community and connection.

"When we deny the story it defines us. When we own the story, we can write a brave new ending." Brene Brown Sister/co-host Kerry found a community during Covid times known as The Daring Sisters, a patchwork of blind women from all over, in person and virtual retreats, which serve as support and connection for one another and Laura Datner (having been DS’s secretary since) was one of those women. Joining us from “the roller coaster capital,” this week on Outlook Laura from Ohio shares about her own diagnosis of RP and raising a child with Down Syndrome - from fundraising and inclusion and meeting other women and families to the medical and developmental side of life with these disabilities/conditions such as tunnel vision or a heart condition - it takes a village. Her diagnostic RP story is an example of how crudely physicians can break the news and the utter disconnect between the medical and social models of disability, like low vision/blindness compared to the social model, with connection at the forefront of organisations like Daring Sisters. We talk the start of the summer season with its ice cream, carnivals, and amusement park days - Mother’s Day and the roller coaster ride that is parenthood, and how Laura first met the creator of Daring Sisters when attending their National Ability Center in Utah, both with a shared eye condition, after being diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa at age twenty-nine herself. Datner describes the in person activities at the NAC which include adaptive skiing, equine therapy, tandem biking, archery, and a high ropes course which Laura couldn’t take part in in 2019 down to the fact that she was pregnant with her first child at the time. Kerry and Laura share about pros and cons of in person vs virtual connections made, the collaborative experience of leisure and support group activities, and the different themed groups (gardening/parenting/book club to name a few) Daring Sisters offers including the virtual one where they first became aware of each other. Thanks to Laura Datner for opening up to us and telling us her story, in her own words, for this one on her welcome package to blindness, in contrast to the welcome package to Daring Sisters Kerry received. DS (Daring Sister) Laura and DS (The Syndrome) she advocates for with her son and the Down syndrome community. This one highlights an essential Mother’s Day message of self care along with more maternal roles since initial diagnosis/prognosis for herself and her child. For more, check out the DS: http://www.daringsisters.org

Our guest for this one has gone from Carnival owner and amusement equipment broker' to life coach to podcast guest booker to accessibility expert who writes, speaks, consults, and hosts his own podcast asking: What is the advantage of accessibility? Sister/co-host Kerry met Maxwell Ivey on LinkedIn over a decade ago and this is his first time, live and solo, with us on the show. This week on Outlook we’re speaking, on a Mother’s Day May Max episode, with Ivey about his advocacy and accessibility journey, alongside Kerry’s. His tagline for years asked an important question: "As far as what I’m doing now, I think I’ve figured out that "what’s your excuse" can still be my tag line, although I have a second tag line now which is "accessibility benefits everyone”." Max shares stories and lessons he learned about determination and perseverance, growing up with his family on the midway since age five, along with a song he sings for us about taking charge of our own destinies and on effective communication with society around issues of accessibility. On all this, Max says: "There a lot of people in business, nonprofits, government agencies that are still finding excuses to not address accessibility with their digital content or inclusion in their workplace or physical locations so the "what’s your excuse" at this point, in 2026, what is it? Check out “The Accessibility Advantage” podcast with Max as he addresses the topic: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-accessibility-advantage/id1740242884 Accessibility is my message because I feel like I am uniquely suited because of my experience, to approach accessibility from the positive benefit side and leave the scare people to death side to everyone else. We talk AI and falling on the ice and getting right back up - It’s Everything Max with a laugh along with our friend with the Texas charm. Check him out, everything Max, by going to his website: http://theaccessibilityadvantage.com

Our guest says: It really made you realise how different all of us/all of you with rare diseases are. We assumed we’d find some things in common but we found more differences than more things in common which is interesting just because of how vast it is and what an area it covers. Janet is back, talking being the mother of two one in a million children, a full seven years since that time after her first well received radio show guest appearance with us back in May of 2019 - that’s right, we’re speaking with our mother for the full hour on Outlook this week. We’re thrown right into sounds from the big city of Toronto, to kick off the show, as today we’re discussing sister/co-host Kerry’s recent attendance at a rare disease conference put on by The Canadian Organisation for Rare Disorders. CORD, as they’re known, gave her a scholarship to attend, in person this year. It was Kerry’s first year going to this particular conference, but she went with our mother who once had no other way of researching her child’s rare disease back in the mid 90s, new, and scary symptoms during the pre-Internet days, but than to request medical journal articles (full of complex clinical language) being sent from one library to another. Check out this first half hour appearance of Janet, our mom, on Outlook with us all the way back during our very first Mother’s Day episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2019-05-13-mothers-day-feat-our-mom-janet/id1527876739?i=1000488226654 Returning to this latest hour, we discuss again how Kerry found out about this conference and its associated scholarship to begin with, about going as one of the patient advocates while feeling lost amongst the medical minefield of a hotel conference room full of mostly physicians and drug companies and researchers, and about why it was decided for Kerry and our mom to go together (from both Kerry and our mom’s perspectives). They share a bit about their relaxing stay at a downtown Toronto hotel which included sitting by the coy pond and fountain, about the sketchy wifi, and about the handy location of the place in the city even if the rooftop pool wasn’t yet open for the season, along with the wonderful array of healthy and not snacks and meals provided which also included room service after a long conference day. Both share about what it felt like to be amongst other families, parents, and caregivers, earlier along in their loved one’s rare disease journey than we are, who they could see themselves in, doing anything and everything to advocate and learn about rare and ultra rare diseases. It was easy to empathise, in a place like that, with both Kerry and brother/co-host Brian having been diagnosed with Senior Loken Syndrome by the geneticist team at Toronto’s Hospital For Sick Children in 1997. Kerry describes not only the positive parts of attending, but also about hearing the word “burden” used throughout the conference. She explains what it felt like when a room of medical professionals looked at things clinically, from a medical model of disability and chronic (rare) disorders, when those of us who are the patients, in this case are why the conference was going on in the first place. Janet then describes what it feels like to be a parent in a room like this, 30 years on from Kerry’s first diagnosis with a rare disease related condition of renal failure. Note from Kerry: I talk a lot about rare disease, but just chronic illness in general and how we accept things in life and how we learn to live with them. Then when do you push for some answers and that’s what I’m doing right now and that’s why I attended this conference for the first time. Again I wanna thank CORD, Canadian Organisation For Rare Disorders for supporting me and attending my first rare disease conference with them. Check out more from CORD by going to their website: https://www.raredisorders.ca

What’s an omnibus? What’s an archer? This week’s program kicks off with the theme to BBC Radio 4’s The Archers Omnibus, a song that pumps up Kerry and Barry at the start of every week. The Archers, which is celebrating it’s 75th anniversary this year, also happens to be the longest running serial in the world. This radio drama which takes place in rural England has become routine listening for Kerry and Barry the last couple years. They comment on the show’s impressive sound design, how it tackles issues such as race and class, and how the plotlines mirror real life. Though Kerry has always loved TV, radio dramas like this appeal to her these days with her vision lessening because they give her brain a break from the visual stimuli. We wrap up this mixed bag month discussing the varying quality of audio description out there. Brian comments on the AD for Running Point as voiced by friend Nefertiti Matos Olivares comparing it to that of the new King of the Hill season. This is an excellent example demonstrating how important it is to blend into a show as an audio describer, without trying to sound like your own character. We also put out a call for donations to The Pacific Training Centre for the Blind as unfortunately a grant they rely on wasn’t approved this year. We’ve spoke of them on this show a lot, outlining how essential centres like this are where blind people share their lived experience with other blind people to help with independent living. Donate here: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/blindstewards/ To finish off, we hop back on The Archers Omnibus and head to the Academic Archers Conference in Birmingham. Kerry and Barry had been planning to go to this for months and as luck would have it, they were sick, but still took the trek. They share about accessibility including the cab driver walking them for 5 minutes into the airport as there was no accessible drop off close to it. Workers from the hotel they stayed at offered to guide them to the conference centre during the weekend event. There were volunteers at the conference that helped them with the food as a buffet lunch isn’t the most convenient for blind people. They share about the papers and panels presented. One of the actors from the show, Ryan Kelly, who also happens to be blind was there. Another great example of representation, a blind person playing a character in a show that isn’t blind. They briefly got to meet him, though the exchange was awkward, showing just because someone is also blind it doesn’t mean we immediately connect with them. Though Barry also met an attendee who is blind and they had much more time to chat as they were at the same table during the banquet while Ryan Kelly was on his way out. And the big highlight for them was sitting in a giant meeting room with everyone at the conference on the Sunday morning, listening live to The Archers Omnibus together. This was a one-of-a-kind, shared experience with all of the show’s quirky and nerdy fans. Listen to The Archers Omnibus: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-archers-omnibus/id338529121 And learn more about the PTCB from Elizabeth Lalonde’s appearance earlier this year: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2026-02-02-structured-discovery-training-in/id1527876739?i=1000752097822

Well sports fans, holding court and One Court - it’s snowflakes in April, along with it being National Volunteer Week with its benefits to the community and yet with a historical track record of exploitation of people with lived experience of disability. As you can tell, it’s another Outlook with a mixture of topics this week. We’re back, all of us, and live in studio - sister/co-host Kerry is thrown off her train of thought, with soundscape of her recent Irish train trip to Limerick with BF Barry and Oyster. Students at Western are finishing up for another year and we’d like to thank The Gazette for their article written featuring us and the show this year. We’re all talking what shows and movies we’re into lately, Kerry and Barry are sharing about their return travel back to Canada with stories of their Air Canada cabin manager friend Elizabeth and on pushing back on the airline policy of passengers with disabilities waiting till the end for assistance while telling the story of a rather inappropriate discussion about Canada with an assistant bashing Canada and our weather and Canadians, even though they are a representative of the airline as they talk as they guide us through the airport. Kerry recently held court in a hotel lobby in Dublin, meeting and greeting friendly Irish and international travellers, and shares all about her conversations and orientation of her surroundings using her listening skills and AI and technology. Travel is a multi sensory experience and soundscape and riding the rails especially, in Ireland, brings all sorts of adventures, as topics, to us here on the mic, even as brother/co-host Brian turns Barry’s mic down for a time. Brian shares about the discovery of the One Court device, a way of making sports more accessible and inclusive, as a tactile experience and allowing us to enjoy and follow the games (be it baseball, football, soccer, or basketball). It’s a home run with the "One Court” and for more information on this device, check out: https://www.onecourt.io

“Are you really blind?” We three don’t usually get questioned on whether or not we’re really unable to see, but in a large room with around eight hundred people, BF Barry had the question posed to him as he held a mic and called out the guy, on stage, with the bag over his head. It’s a somewhat x rated April mixed bag show, last one from Ireland to Canada for a while, with Sibling’s Day having happened recently, but one difference between Canada and Ireland is that the word “siblings” isn’t used in the latter like it is in the former. We spoke, back in February on our third Family Day show, about the word “siblings” with our brother and sister as our guests once more, while this time brother/co-host Brian shares how he learned since then that the word doesn’t exist in Spanish either. This week on Outlook we speak on sister/co-host Kerry, BF Barry, and Oyster’s recent adventures which include head injuries acquired in a hotel lobby, more lack of braille on the floors above, and inaccessible room menus. They share about getting over the “not Covid” along with fuel shortages and bus station closures, Brian describing his recent experience taking public transportation in Toronto, while Barry and Kerry were having to look for assistance from other travellers after being escorted by a security guard over the bridge when Dublin practically shut down (image description Brian reads painting the picture of a famous Irish capital city’s street in the midst of country wide fuel protests by farmers). This was after their trip, down south, to Limerick City to see a live recording of their favourite Irish podcaster who just so happens to call himself “Blind Boy,” even though he’s not actually blind, known for wearing a bag over his head. We all share our thoughts on someone calling themselves blind when they are not. Also, the upheaval across Ireland produces flashbacks of the 2022 winter Ottawa trucker convoy and the chaos that too caused as we discuss how such protests, while reflecting real and serious issues in both countries, can create very real and serious barriers, especially for people with disabilities. From north to south - travels lately and everything from stab vests to moon launches on this latest one. For more on Blind Boy and his podcast, go here: https://shows.acast.com/blindboy

It’s an April scramble, we’re celebrating the birth of a few friends of the show, and it’s two months exactly till the big performance - sister/co-host Kerry finally appears, BF Barry in the background. This week on Outlook we’re talking getting sick/on our own and together, VoiceOver gestures, and kidneys on the mind. Kerry can’t handle the germs, brother/co-host Brian reflects on his first kidney transplant surgery day from our mom (April 6, 1999), and poor Oyster the guide dog is recouping. Brian shares about his band’s first show coming up (Supply and Demand), King Orca, and we’re all already planning details of the evening. We’re remembering braille on cassette tapes and Kerry is brought back to 1996 through Cup of Soup. Kerry holds onto her fear that Canadian/Ontario hospitals and the healthcare system won’t be functioning like she’s used to as she and Barry both tell the story of an up close encounter with the NHS (National Health Service). I’ll look out for you and you look out for me. Compassion osioeorhcpijsie … religion … oauelkwjnfvljelijr as Kerry cuts out, Brian tries to rain things in (April showers) and scrambles to end the show - Canadian flurries and a blur of Easter Monday into Easter Tuesday. As this episode is being shared as a podcast in early June, Brian’s band King Orca’s show is coming up on Saturday 6 June at Supply and Demand Pizza and Beer in London. Doors 8 PM. Would love to see you there if you’re in the area. You can listen to a couple of their songs here: https://kingorca.bandcamp.com/album/the-ceramicist

Our guest for this one says: I’m so keen now on representation and demystifying things for people and inviting them in and like: “Hey, understand my experience. I’m not the weird character you saw in that movie. Do not fear me. I’m a human being. I’m Jennie”. This week on Outlook we’re speaking with advocate, actor, and athlete Jennie Bovard, from her home in Halifax, about her experience with low vision, about her humorous Accessible Media Inc. scripted series “Pretty Blind,” and about the "Low Vision Moments" podcast that inspired the television program. She shares why she decided to get involved as a trainee to facilitate Blindness 101 workshops in her province, the people and industries she’s hoping to bring the workshop to, and about how if she doesn’t take up the challenge, who else is going to? Jennie was born with a condition which impacts the body’s ability to make pigment in the hair, skin, and in the eyes which has taken her on a journey to accepting her Albinism, in working for the younger generations with Atlantic Provinces Special Education Authority (or APSEA) and and into educating others (after encounters like the one on an airplane where she was handed a question written on a napkin about what her magic powers were) and trying to figure out how to push back on the stigma of such an obvious physical difference. Even plants and animals have Albinism in nature which highlights the awesome diversity that exists in all living things on the planet. Tomayto tomato when it comes to language sometimes, but we hear from Jennie about her preferred wording for her genetic condition and hope to dispel some of the myths that exist around Albinism out there, in North America and beyond, as we know that just having one friend with it growing up, like sister-co-host Kerry did, only means you are familiar with one person’s lived experience of what is clearly a visible disability. . She also tells us more about how she used to try to blend in and play down some of the condition’s issues in the attempt to not stand out. We ask Jennie what her takeaways were from spending a few days, training with Kerry and the other Blindness 101 facilitators, in Vancouver last November at the Blind Beginnings office and she tells us: When you’re hunkered down and not only spending time together but you’re spending time actually collaborating and working together and having discussions about the workshop and why we’re all there, I think you become faster friends because you know what one another is about and what you’re passionate about and close borders and good food together that all helps too." Kerry agrees that it was a pleasure getting to know Bovard, along with the others, during their time in British Columbia and we hope you will check out this episode and learn more about Jennie's advocacy work, in media and in sports and education, along with hearing her firsthand lived experience of Albinism with Albinism Awareness Day coming up on June 13th. Check out the “Pretty Blind” series by going to: https://www.amiplus.ca/welcome And, as we kick off this one announcing the availability of The Western Gazette’s issue with Outlook featured in it, we’re once more here including a link to the online version of the article: https://westerngazette.ca/culture/the-voice-of-activism-the-kijewski-siblings/article_d025e980-1680-4eb5-a189-b4f2f89ea6f5.html

After first spending a magical week in community together in Mexico nearly a decade ago, sister/co-host Kerry has taken multiple classes and workshops from writer and filmmaker/producer Kerra Bolton such as - Writing with Your Ancestors: Infusing Memoir with Family History and Say It Plain. “It’s very hard in writing and what I’ve noticed among writing students is that a lot of times when they are afraid to be vulnerable, they will write about something instead of writing through it...I get it, when I was writing about learning how to swim in my forties, which ended up becoming my first film: “Return of the Black Madonna,” it was hard to be vulnerable. And so, I had to really write through it and not just write about a subject,: says the adventurous Kerra about an experience like going from first putting your face into a pot of water to eventually finding buoyancy in the ocean. Kerry first met Kerra at a writing workshop in San Miguel de Allende, far from any body of water, back in 2017 and they have stayed in touch ever since, following each other’s life stories as time has gone on. This week on Outlook, for Kerry’s now annual International Women’s Day episode, she speaks with her friend and kindred spirit about their time together in San Miguel as Kerry shares an unforgettable offer Kerra made near the end of that week; one female supporting the other in the midst of some first time independent world travel jitters. Concerning themes of race, trauma, and legacy, Bolton has been published in places ranging from online community Sweatpants & Coffee to CNn. She has worked on projects such as the documentary Detroit Rising which explores restorative justice in Detroit schools, communities, and nonprofit settings. These two friends discuss finding joy, metaphors around black and white and night and day along with white fragility and the running from the feeling of any discomfort in standing up for a better, more equitable world. They talk through when to speak (up and/or out) in social media spaces or on their own platforms, for example, and when to sit in silence with ourselves as women. focusing on personal growth or embodiment practices. Also, they could and do spend a bunch of time around cultural critique of the treatment of women such as Beyonce and Taylor Swift in the country music genre, the differences in how some female artists are given breaks and chances in belonging in certain creative spaces more than others. During March’s Women’s History Month, these two cover women in pop culture, bond over having similar spelled/sounding names, and they also share their literary love of Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery who once said: "When I lose anything in this life I like to think I may find it in the next. After all, everything in the universe goes in circles - day and night, the seasons, the roll of the planets around the sun. Everything comes back to its starting point and begins again." Both Kerra and Kerry, like Anne of Green Gables pals," remain kindred spirits with their shared love of this iconic literary character, like Anne Shirley, one fictional and two real life writers utilising writing for self expression, and through work as advocates in the differing work they do from their little corners of the world, until they can one day meet IRL once more. In the meantime, check out Kerra’s How I Made A Film Without Film School newsletter over on Substack: https://waterinmybones.substack.com Or go to her website: https://kerrabolton.com

For 2026’s "Blindness 101" workshops, offered this year with no cost to recipients and facilitated by Blind Beginnings Society out of British Columbia, our guest this week says, on bridging the gap: "The biggest bonus is it’s free. For this year, we’re literally doing a workshop that any company if they were to call and have a talk on autism in the workplace the person that they call would wanna be paid. We’re doing a workshop that will help in so many ways because blindness is one of those conditions that is overlooked in so many ways and it hopefully will bridge that gap and build relationships with people and make life easier for all parties involved.” This is the month where we in Ontario spring ahead with the clocks, whereas two provinces west of us, they do not. March dawns, and with it dawns the beginning of 2026’s Blindness 101 program with our first 101 guest of the month, coming to us over in the province of Saskatchewan. A new month and this week on Outlook we’re speaking with return guest (having first been on with us during Covid), Blaine Deutscher, whom sister/co-host Kerry finally met in person late last year in Vancouver at the Blind Beginnings office after having met virtually through Canadian Federation of the Blind meetings in recent years. The two of them, along with several others, gathered together in B.C. for a weekend of training to become official Blindness 101 workshop facilitators. First we catch up with Deutscher, with the start of the 2026 Paralympics, on Blaine’s love of adaptive sports including golf and hockey, the latter of which he’s been playing for over twenty years. He’s glad to see the sport spreading across things like age range and geographically across Canada and internationally. For background on his life including sports, check out our guest’s first visit to this show almost exactly five years ago: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2021-03-22-discussion-with-blaine-deutscher/id1527876739?i=1000514107207 Whether it be the unfair and inconvenient policy trains, buses, and airlines expect that people with disabilities and service animals provide up to 48 hours notice if we expect assistance or the abundance of inaccessible forms we’re required to fill out, these are all disability related barriers some of us deal with. Blaine uses the example of manual vs motorised wheelchairs and the reasons a wheelchair user might want to have both modes of mobility at their disposal. It’s the same for white canes and/or guide dogs, his most recent being Oscar who will be eight in April. Like all who’ve had a guide dog, he has to decide if he’s going to train for another and speaks on some of the growing cons that exist when it comes to ridiculous ignorant policies and fears happing with companies like Uber, when anybody is going to have times when they are tired and don’t feel like walking, when a bus or other vehicle would be faster. Kerry and Blaine discuss the team that he and Oscar are and how they worked as a team to navigate through the city of Vancouver last November compared to his life in Saskatchewan when it’s forty below or he’s trying to find the right bus and listening in hopes that the audible announcements for bus numbers is working or not. Today we have a conversation about selling yourself and specifically for these lived experience workshops. For more on Deutscher’s viewpoint on this stuff, Blaine says: "I can read a book once and be like, "oh that was a really good book." I can read it the second time and be like, "I don’t remember that in this book." Yes you can have an agency come and speak, but then you can have us come and speak and even if the workshop was identical, there’s always something because it’s a different perspective every time that you might learn something different." So join us for this first part, a before from this before and after “Blindness 101” with Blaine as Blaine and Kerry look back and reflect on their training weekend and how the group bonded, practiced, and connected, through learning how to facilitate “Blindness 101”. And if you are a business, organisation, or other group who might be interested in having a “Blindness 101” workshop (free of charge in 2026), if you are located in Saskatchewan, Ontario, or elsewhere in Canada then reach out to us, Blaine ([email protected]), or by going to their website: https://www.blindbeginnings.ca/blindness-101-workshop Or by emailing us here at Outlook and we can pass on any requests to the appropriate provincial facilitator: [email protected] as we hope this will eventually spread to all provinces and territories not just British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Nova Scotia. (Later in March on Outlook we’ll be speaking with Nova Scotia’s facilitator so stay tuned here and for the rest of the year for “the before and after”.