Living, learning and thriving with a disability

Leroy Phillips, an education youth advocate for GPE, reflects on his early years after losing his vision, stigma and the programs and mentors that allowed him to thrive today.

It was at the tender age of six that I lost my vision. And it took four years, until I was ten, for my body and brain to work together and truly understand the changes in my life. These were significant changes to the way I lived and the way I learned.

An early blessing was that I never lost my childhood optimism and was not depressed by my blindness. But those were challenging years. I felt fragile – I lacked a network of experienced blind or visually impaired people who could share their experiences with me….