Special channel „Non-viewers with a view" Blind couple from Troisdorf show their world on Youtube
Troisdorf · Ella and Marc Petry show their lives as visually impaired people with their own YouTube channel. The married couple from Troisdorf would like to be more accommodated in their everyday life.
Whether neighbourhood children wanted to play "Blind Cow" with him or people pushed him into a wrong train as a joke, Marc Petry can tell many anecdotes - and laugh heartily about them. But it wasn't experiences like these that prompted the visually impaired man from Troisdorf to run a YouTube channel together with his wife Ella, who is also blind. "It came about after a series of frustrating experiences," says the 29-year-old. Since mid-November, the Petrys have been explaining their view of the world via the video portal Youtube and want to enlighten - as "non-viewers with a view“.
"We want to be seen," says Marc Petry. In Troisdorf's city centre, he has passed an information stand several times without being addressed once, he describes what annoys him in everyday life. This includes cyclists who ruthlessly speed through the pedestrian zone. Ella Petry would also like more attention: "If you have any questions, just ask us," says the 31-year-old. „Inclusion has two sides, and we are happy to adapt as well," Marc clarifies. He thinks that a rethink is needed: "There is a lot of talk about inclusion, but not with disabled people.“
Both weren’t blind from birth
Ella and Marc Petry share a similar story. Neither of them had impaired vision from birth, for both of them it only developed at primary school age. Both have a form of juvenile macular degeneration. This is a disease of the retina that leads to a loss of vision in the central visual field. Since Ella's parents are also visually impaired, the hereditary disease was quickly diagnosed in her. With Marc, it took three years from the first symptoms to the diagnosis. "That was like a rude awakening for my whole family," recalls the now 29-year-old. That's when his mother also found out that she was visually impaired and had passed the disease on to Marc, but not to his six siblings.
"It flickers in the centre, but the visual field is intact," Ella explains her vision. She recognises the lamp standing next to her as well as the table at her side, but not what is right in front of her. "We have two to three percent vision," she says. He can read his watch thanks to extra large digits, Marc says: "Among the blind, we are the eagles."
Ella and Marc Petry, who met four years ago during an IT course at the Berufsförderungswerk in Düren, Germany, shape their own lives. „We're sorting this out completely on our own," says Marc. In the rehabilitation program in Düren, the Petrys, who got married in 2018, learned to walk with the cane for the blind, how to use auditory aids or read Braille. In their apartment, not only the kitchen scales talks to them. "The smartphone is a blessing, there is a voice output for almost everything," says Marc.
Youtube channel to wake people up
While Ella has been working as an administrative assistant for the city of Lohmar for one and a half years, Marc is currently looking for work. "I want a job that suits my inclination to approach people," he explains. Often, however, this is exactly what he does not want. "Many people see visually impaired people in jobs like telephone operator or physiotherapist", says Marc. "But we can do much more," he says annoyed. Blind people's associations have not been any help to him in his attempts to break out of the cliché. "That's why I had the idea of becoming active myself and drawing attention to our situation," says Marc, who comes from Trier.
"We see our channel as a nudge in the ribs of the people who should be dealing with our problems politically and socially," says the 29-year-old. The Petrys make their videos without outside help. "We shoot them ourselves and also do the video editing," says Marc. That's a lot of work, he says, and his training in music and sound technology helps him.
The "non-viewers with a view" have released four videos so far. In them, they tell their personal stories and describe how they see the world - very concretely, but above all in a figurative sense. Their videos have received more than 200 hits, the first of which have already been shown in Troisdorf city centre. "We were asked when the next videos will be released", Marc is pleased to say.
He and Ella have ideas for many more episodes. "There are still so many topics", says Marc. Accessibility is one of them, and there are plans to broaden their view of the world through interview partners. The family should also have its say.
Marc's family likes what he and Ella do. "My parents don't know about the channel yet," reveals Ella. The Troisdorf couple has not yet had any negative reactions to their Internet presence. They are not afraid of it: "I want to go the right way, not the easy way," says Marc.
He accepted his fate after the initial shock almost 20 years ago. "If I could still see, I probably would have done a lot of things differently", he says. "But whether it would have been better is questionable.“
The "non-viewers with a view" („Nichtseher mit Durchblick“) are on Youtube, Facebook and Instagram. More can be found on the Internet at www.nichtseher.de.
(Original text: Nadine Quadt; Translation: Mareike Graepel)
