We asked our guides worldwide to contribute to this blog and tell us their stories. Kelvin from Singapore was the first, now being followed by Eric from Atlanta, USA. Have fun reading his first story (hopefully more will follow soon):
“In Atlanta, USA, we are guiding tours everyday. September and October have been very busy. We were all trained exceptionally well by Anome, Liran, Pepe, and Daniela, and combined with that foundation and our over one year experience, we all feel like we can handle anything, and change any attitude. And we do, but that will be my next blog!!
Sometimes there are exceptions which I wanted to share. Recently we had two guides, Marshall and Brian, suffer injuries away from work and they came back to work still healing and it reminded me how much we love our jobs. Both of them had challenges to deal with, in addition to being visually impaired, and yet they returned back to work very quickly. While they were still recovering they managed to come in, and were positive, uplifting, funny and inspiring to us all and their customers.
In both cases, their bravery and courage really inspired me. In addition, it also reminded me what a gift our job is. As International Master Guide Pepe has written recently on the guides list, being a guide is…‘the best life gift to many blind partners worldwide’ and he wrote we all ‘are proudly members of the dark family around the world’. Marshall and Brian showed me they agree!! It is really the gift that keeps on giving.
I love this job, and I love being with my coworkers, and with our customers!!”
(Submitted by K. Erik Weinstock, Exhibition Tour Guide, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, kerikw@comcast.net)
Dialogue Social Enterprise
Meena Vaidyanathan
Andreas Heinecke
Stefan Wilhelm
Kelvin
