Christine Hunsinger
3300 Brownsville Rd.
Pittsburgh, PA 15227-2723
H: (412) 881-9328
C: (412) 414-1628
Email: [email protected]
1. I am Christine Hunsinger, and I would like to be considered for membership on the ACB Board of Directors. I am from Pennsylvania, and have been retired from Federal work for ten years. I spend a lot of my time working for my state affiliate, the local chapter of my affiliate, the Special interest Affiliates that I belong to, The Rehabilitation Taskforce of ACB, and the Advocacy steering committee of ACB. Although I am an old soul of 76 years, I have not been active in ACB until six or seven years ago, so I believe that I bring ideas to conversations which don’t rely on past practices for validation. I have been an active member of my local chapter and my state affiliate for a few years longer. I believe that I have a skill set that lends itself to the kind of work that a Board of Directors is usually called on to do.
I have always been curious to learn new information and new ways of solving problems. In my work career it was important that I understand complex rules, know when I needed to do more research to make a good decision, and work with others to accomplish team goals.
I want to be a bigger part of making ACB the best 21st century blindness Advocacy organization that it can be.
2. I have been the president of my state affiliate for the past four years, and during that time we have hired several employees being flexible during changing times. I chaired several teams that do the work of the organization. I am a worker on other teams. Our new president has asked me to continue with my Advocacy efforts and continue to chair that team.
I currently serve on the Board of The Braille Revival League and am a member of the Public Awareness Committee of that affiliate. I would hope that my thoughtful questions in board meetings and my willingness to serve on a committee and be a worker within the group reflects well on me.
I am a member of the Alliance on Aging and Vision Loss, and I have joined wholeheartedly in the advocacy efforts of that affiliate for older blind individuals. I am only a member of Library Users of America, and have not been active in the work of the board, but I strongly believe that libraries, books, and reading are important to keep all of us as informed as we can be. I have joined BPI as an Ally, and I will give that affiliate support as a worker for the group, with money when needed, and with my desire to be a better friend to people who I don’t always understand.
As the chair of the Rehabilitation Taskforce, I have wrestled with how a small group can make a significant impact within the larger organization. I think that as I look at the tasks I have carried out as a volunteer, my experience has given me a chance to learn more about leadership which ACB can take advantage of with me as a board member.
3. I feel that equity, diversity and inclusion are not just lip service words. I will work with the board to adopt strategies and policies to strengthen ACB’s commitment in this area. Some of my ideas are:
- To set goals in this area, we first need to understand how diverse ACB already is.
- We need to find ways to reach groups and people who ACB has not reached in the past.
- To INCREASE diversity, we could ask ACB members to use three adjectives that describe themselves other than blindness or low vision. This could be an advertising campaign to highlight our diversity where people could say, I’m blind or low vision, but I also identify as: …
- To PROMOTE equity in ACB means that we meet people where they are and give them the services and support that they need when it is possible to do so.
To encourage inclusion means not just that we make room for people, but that we welcome them to the work of ACB. The community events do a good job in introducing people to ACB, but it shouldn’t stop there. Perhaps we could assign a welcoming person to new people, to gage their interests, explain ACB goals and better include them by getting them involved in ACB’s work. The more people we have working to make life better for all of us, the better we can accomplish this ongoing task.
To support accessibility, means that we start within the organization. The organization shouldn’t use software that isn’t accessible. It isn’t reasonable to say that ACB counts on those with good vision to help the blind and low vision people get things done. Accessibility is independence. All of our advocacy for accessibility in workplaces, on the web, and throughout life should stress that thought.
4. I believe that the most important challenge facing ACB at this time is losing members through death and old age and not attracting so many new members. I would think that we need to do research about how to reach and try to change the minds of those who think that this organization should only be about the blindness issue and not about how people who are blind or low vision also have other issues which they request support on from the rest of the low vision and blindness community.
We need to listen to and support the young people who may be interested in aspects of their vision journey that we either never had to think about or that we solved so long ago for ourselves that we hardly think them worth considering. We need to be more mindful of those people who lose vision later in life. We also need to reach out to those who in the past have not thought of ACB as an ally, but whose lives are affected by vision loss along with other negative factors like poverty, hunger, an information desert since they cannot see to read, or physical and mental illness.
Cultural, racial, and ethnic differences have been a barrier to many who felt uncomfortable in the organization. Some or many of these people who we should be concerned about may not even join us, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work for better solutions for them. We need to walk in the shoes of people with vision loss or blindness who are not like ourselves. We need to listen to and learn from those who are different from us and become more tolerant of differences and more willing to work together.