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To look at three-year-old Christy Joseph laughing and playing in the playground, you wouldn’t be able to distinguish anything different about her.

Christy lives in a small community on the island of St Lucia in the Caribbean. It would be difficult to find a happier, more active child.

Christy Joseph is totally blind: both her eyes are prosthetic. She was diagnosed at the age of one with bilateral retinoblastoma, cancer of the eye.

Adapting to blindness

Although she was lucky enough to have life-saving surgery before the cancer spread, when she returned home she had no follow up care. This begged the question how would Christy, her young mother, and her little baby brother adapt to living with her blindness? And what about school?

Christy was identified by a community outreach clinic run by the St Lucia Blind Welfare Association, supported by Sightsavers’ partner the Caribbean Council for the Blind (CCB). CCB provides support for many programmes, including special education, adjustment to blindness (such as helping people with their mobility), and community eye health.

Christy became part of the education service and has a special teacher working with her in her pre-school.

Supporting the family

Her mother, Desirie, has also had to learn how to adjust to her daughter’s blindness, and has received a lot of support from CCB’s services in St Lucia. She is an active participant in a women’s workshop that targets women who are blind, as well as parents of children who are blind.

Thanks to these kinds of services, children like Christy have the same opportunities for educational and social development as their sighted peers.

Christy is living proof that blindness does not get in the way of living a fulfilled and happy life.