Blind Low Vision NZ admits it 'slipped back' with blind people in senior positions

Blind Low Vision NZ has admitted having a lack of blind people in senior positions, but says it is working to do better.

On Wednesday, award-winning advocate Jonathan Mosen told RNZ's Nine to Noon programme New Zealand was the worst place in the Western world to be blind.

Mosen said New Zealand had gone from a leader in blind technologies to lagging well behind.

He pointed to a lack of disabled people in senior leadership roles in government and other organisations as a key part of the deterioration.

"There has not been a blind, what we would now call chief executive, of the blindness organisation in this country since 1923 - over 100 years of no blind person leading that organisation," Mosen said.

Blind Low Vision NZ said it was striving to do better.

Board chair Clive Lansink said many of the blind people who had held senior positions with the organisation had retired or moved on.

"It can't be denied that Blind Low Vision NZ has rather slipped back in the last ten to 15 years or so regarding blind people in senior positions," he said in a statement.

They were focused on developing new leadership in the blind community, Lansink said. He pointed to Dan Shepherd's new role as general manager community and inclusion, which began in September.

"We also have blind people in other leadership roles such as employment and youth pathways. Our annual intern programme is another example of doing what we can with the resources available to create opportunities for young blind and low vision people to flourish."

Blind Low Visions NZ was working on being a great place to work, but as a charity it could be difficult to compete with the commercial sector, he said.

"We recently committed to a strategy to make our workplace fully accessible to disabled people. We want to be a model workplace with accessibility and disability awareness in mind."

There was also representation on the board with five directors who were blind or had low vision, and two with direct family connection with blindness, Lansink said.

He said they also agreed about the importance of access to new technology and laws.

"We would agree New Zealand badly needs proper disability access legislation and Blind Low Vision NZ has committed to working alongside other disabled peoples' organisations towards this goal."

To that end, it had developed a relationship with Vision Australia, he said.

"We are doing more work to promote exciting new products. We're also putting more effort into more evaluation of new products to see which ones we can include in the training we provide to blind and low vision New Zealanders."

Some of the new technologies would dramatically change what it meant to be blind, Lansink said.

Next year, Mosen will move to the United States to take up the role as executive director for accessibility excellence at the National Federation of the Blind, where he will work alongside companies like Meta, Amazon, Google and emerging AI firms, to ensure blind people were considered in new technology.

Lansink said the charity wished him well.

"His new role will benefit blind people around the world, including in New Zealand. Our job is to be ready for that."

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