Emily Cane Project

The Emily Cane Project is a unique and innovative partnership program which serves the vision-impaired of Vietnam and employs college students in the process.

A necessary and essential life skill for the vision-impaired is the ability to navigate through their world independently using their own senses and a cane. Orientation and Mobility Education teaches the visually impaired to navigate the world efficiently, effectively, and safely by focusing on sensory awareness, spatial concepts, searching and locating skills, independent movement and protective techniques which provide added protection in unfamiliar areas. Through the use of various cane techniques the vision-impaired person can learn to clear one's path or to locate objects in their typical life settings such as their home, community, workplace, and school.

The majority of vision-impaired Vietnamese citizens have never had the standard opportunity of learning Orientation and Mobility Skills. There are approximately 500,000 blind people residing in Vietnam, a majority of which are located in rural areas where health care workers have minimal instruction in eye care issues and possess limited resources for blindness prevention and treatment. Eye care services are not yet widespread throughout the country because of the many financial, technical and human resource challenges which need to be overcome, including the distribution of canes needed for independence.

Partnered with The Degenhardt Foundation, Brittany's Hope created the Emily Cane Project, inspired by Emily Abel, adopted from Vietnam and born with Retinopathy of Prematurity. Despite her disability, Emily has flourished with the gift of talented O&M teachers, who cultivated her potential to be self-sufficient and confident. The Emily Cane Project developed and implemented this essential O&M training in a very unique way, beginning in July 2005 in Ben Tre, Vietnam. Recognizing the limited resources available, several O&M instructors were hired to train 200 college students in O&M techniques which they brought into the communities where they lived. The newly-trained students distributed canes and instructed over 1000 vision-impaired people, enabling them to get around independently.

The Ben Tre Emily Cane Project was a tremendous success and at the request of the government we partnered once more with Degenhardt Foundation to reach an additional 1,400 vision-impaired people in Danang, Vietnam. Brittany's Hope is proud to have worked with The Degenhardt Foundation in the distribution of canes and training to more than 2,500 vision-impaired people living in Vietnam. We are excited to see this program grow as more children and adults learn how to adapt to life with a cane, increasing their independence and changing their lives in such a simple and profound way.