Meet a Visually Impaired Tech Repairman
This week, Sabreena Daly sat down with Miguel Vejerano, a young man from Corozal, who is looking on the bright side in his own unique way. Miguel is visually impaired, but you’d really have to see it, to believe what he does for a living.
Sabreena Daly Reporting
This is Miguel Vejerano, a visually impaired resident of Corozal District. He has only ten percent vision in his left eye. He’s only able to see bright lights and colors. In his right, however, he’s completely blind.
Miguel Vejerano
Miguel Vejerano, Visually Impaired
“It has been almost fourteen years since I’ve been visually impaired. I lost it when I was eighteen. It was due to an accident I had when I was young. That came to affect me like seven years after.”
Miguel wasn’t always visually impaired. His condition manifested seven years after an accident as a child. He was diagnosed with glaucoma and, three months later, life as he saw it would be changed. His mother, Felipa Vejerano, recounts what it was like learning that her son’s life would change and clinging to her faith as a refuge in times of adversity.
Felipa Vejerano
Felipa Vejerano, Mother of Miguel Vejerano
“I remember a verse that says whatever God make happen to you, he will make a way and I keep on that. When he had his first kid, he said I want to give him something and I don’t have. So I start to tell him that God will make a way, I don’t know where but I know that he put us in this so he will take care of you.”
Miguel Vejerano
“The first year wasn’t like you’re watching me now. The first year was really challenging. I stayed locked up in my room and I didn’t know what to do because it was an impact when they tell you that you won’t be able to see for the rest of your life and that you will lose the rest of your vision in a few years.”
But Miguel would later find his way around his limitation through the unexpected. Not only has Vejerano found his niche working with technology, but he has even made it support him financially.
Miguel Vejerano
“When I lost my vision I said I wont be able to do that again, there’s not a way and I got disappointed. But then I started assisting at the BCVI and I was presented with the screen readers and that’s when I said there must be technology to help me in what I wanted to do. That’s when I started researching by myself to find out. That’s how I learned to repair phones and every electronic device which has a system, a software system.”
How does he do it? That’s the question that not only I had, but every customer that learns that the man that fixes their gadget is unable to see.
Miguel Vejerano
“That’s something that many persons ask me. Even persons that come to me to repair something, not knowing that I do not see, when they get to notice, they would ask how you do it? I use screen readers. All devices that have android systems, they have a screen reader.”
Dave Tun
Dave Tun, Customer
“It surprised me that a visually impaired person could do that type of work. It’s something that inspires me somebody like that can do that type of work.”
Miguel Vejerano, Visually Impaired
“All of the devices that are android, they have talk back which is a screen reader. Everything that’s on screen, once you touch it, you can move left, or right, to move around the screen and it reads everything you touch.”
Miguel offers his services under his business, ITECH Solutions Corozal. He even showed us the many videos he edited for his YouTube Channel, as well as his own advertisement for his business. All it took were apps and a talk-back feature that gives him guidance on where to touch.
Miguel Vejerano
“I never thought that I could involve myself in something that could bring me some economy. It’s not a big economy but it’s something that I can make for myself to feel like I am able to do something. But I do feel good because I never imagined myself doing this.”
Looking on the bright Side, I’m Sabreena Daly.
