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Organizing Your Kitchen for Visual Impairment
On the occasion of 6th WAAD- World Accessibility Awareness Day on June 18th, ChildRaise is very happy to welcome & present our Guest Blogger Jackie Waters of http://hyper-tidy.com She is a mother of four beautiful and energetic boys living on their hobby farm in Oregon. Her journey has been full of challenges, but she learned so much along the way. She would like to share with her readers how she managed to make her home Accessible for her sister in law who is visually impaired.
My husband's sister has been visually impaired since childhood, and I'm constantly impressed at how well she gets around. Still, when she moved in with us a few months ago, we realized our home needed quite a bit of work to be completely accessible to her. It came down to really putting ourselves in her shoes and thinking about what challenges she might encounter, as well as which conveniences would make her feel right at home. Between my husband's handiwork and my organizational skills, we were able to convert our home to an easily-accessible space, and the changes were often quite simple.
285 million people around the world are living with blindness or visual impairment. Today, we live in a world where it's possible for the visually impaired to carry on a healthy, happy life with no more difficulty than a sighted person. If you're visually impaired or if you love someone who is, here are some quick and easy ways you make your kitchen more accessible for blindness or visual impairment.
Group Similar Foods Together
Throughout most homes, it's common to mix different groups of foods together on different pantry shelves. However, this can create confusion for anyone who is visually impaired and can make it much more difficult to find the items you seek. The Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) recommends grouping similar foods together on the same shelf. Soups can be placed together on one shelf while canned vegetables can be placed on a different shelf, and so on.
Distinguishing Similar Containers
Once you've reorganized your kitchen and grouped similar types of foods together on their own shelves, it's possible to take it a step further. You've probably noticed that many foods use similar or almost-identical packaging. For example, it can be very difficult for a visually impaired person to distinguish between two different flavors of soup without being able to read the labels on the cans. One workaround is to place a rubber band around similar cans. For instance, canned vegetables could get one rubber band. Canned fruits could get two rubber bands. Soups could get three, and so on. It is also helpful to purchase foods in larger or smaller sized cans to add variety and make it easier to distinguish between specific items.
Spice It Up
Identifying spices, herbs and seasoning ingredients can sometimes be easier if the ingredient has a strong or unique smell. However, some organization and slight modification might still be required for other spices in the cupboard. For salt and pepper, try placing salt in a salt shaker that is a very unique shape, and placing pepper in a pepper shaker that is a completely different shape. Just like with other foods, spices should ideally be divided up into at least two different shelves: one shelf for cooking spices and the other shelf for baking spices. As an added helpful gesture, move the most commonly used spices to the front of the shelf for easier access.
Don't Forget the Fridge
The same organization techniques can (and should) be applied to the refrigerator as well. Inside the refrigerator, fruits and vegetables may be placed on their own shelf. Meats could be grouped together, and beverages such as milk or juice could have their own shelf. With everything in its place and grouped together by food type, it becomes much easier to navigate the kitchen and find the items you are seeking - with or without a visual impairment.
Cookbooks
A kitchen isn't complete without some great cookbooks full of tasty recipes! Luckily, these days it is possible to find a wide variety of cookbooks for the visually impaired. There are even cookbooks written in Braille for the blind. To mark your favorite recipes, the National Federation of the Blind recommends marking recipe pages by inserting a plastic page or card to hold your spot. This technique will help you find the recipe again easily in the future.
In Conclusion
There are so many options these days for making your kitchen more accessible for the blind or visually impaired - whether that person happens to be yourself or a loved one. It doesn't take much effort or cost much money at all to modify your kitchen and make it friendlier for those with and without the gifts of sight. By staying positive, getting creative, and being willing to try new techniques (such as the ones listed above) you'll be able to find a method to organizing your kitchen that works best for you. If you need some assistance or are strapped for time, you can always recruit some outside help.
Check References links below
Visual impairment
Grouping similar foods together