Emma Van Dyk can see the puck hit the ice, watch TV, and paint her nails.
Emma, is a Western Nursing student who is legally blind. Van Dyk was diagnosed at the age of 6, with Kers Optic Atrophy.
It is an eye condition where her optic nerve cannot send messages from the eye to the brain. Emma is one of 5 Canadian students awarded with a medical vision-assistive device from eSight, to help her see. Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) partnered with eSight to create the scholarship, that Emmas hard work made her the ideal candidate.
When Van Dyk first put the vision-assistive device on, she was astonished with all the details and colours she could see.
“I could see all the neighbours houses, I could see everything in my backyard. We have signs up on our fence in the backyard, and I was able to zoom in on all of them and see the details and the colours it was pretty amazing”
Emma said that she used to be ashamed about her sight loss, but before the glasses she built confidence.
“I was confident before the glasses, but what the glasses do is makes me more comfortable with doing more things ”
Emma feels all the support from her friends and family. She saids that her family gets so excited when she uses her new glasses.
Emma is passionate about spreading awareness and is ready to show the world that she’s capable to do anything.
“Having a disability doesn’t disable you, it just gives you different abilities. You just have to learn to adapt and do things differently but you can still achieve anything anyone else can. My quote is that even though you can’t see the stars doesn’t mean that you can’t reach for them”
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