Jenny talks about braille literacy, beep baseball, and the importance of mentorship with Daniel Martinez and Richie Flores from METAS (Mentoring Engaging and Teaching All Students), a non-profit working in Mexico to empower and encourage equal access to education for blind and low vision students. You can follow their work on METAS' Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/metasllc/
JENNY You're listening to the DC Public Library Podcast recorded from the Labs Recording Studio in the historic modernized Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown Washington, DC. This is "Access This." Hello, I'm your host, Jenny, from the Center for Accessibility, your hub for accessible library services at DCPL. My guests today are Daniel Martinez and Richie Flores. They are from METAS, which stands for Mentoring Engaging and Teaching All Students, a nonprofit working in Mexico to empower and encourage equal access to education for blind and low vision students.
JENNY
Daniel Martinez has served in METAS since 2018 as an advisor and now as METAS' secretary. Daniel holds a Master's of Education in Special Ed and he was recognized by the Susan M. Daniel's Disability Mentoring Hall of Fame in 2019. Daniel identifies as an educator and mentor. He has a passion for working in education and mentoring programs that serve people with disabilities and their families. Daniel is an advocate in the following nonprofit organizations: METAS, the National Federation of the Blind and Down by the Border. Our second guest Richie Flores, the Vice President of METAS, hails from the great state of Texas. Richie has dedicated much of his talents and abilities to improving the lives and impressions towards blindness in his work. As a graduate of Texas Tech University's Master's in Rehabilitation Counseling Program, earning a degree in History from Texas A&M University, and a graduate of the Louisiana Center for the Blind, Flores enthusiastically seeks opportunities to increase the potential to engage youth to compete to compete equally in the classroom and increase the blinds' role in the workforce. So first of all, I want to welcome the two of you and thank you for being on the podcast today. And can you tell our listeners where each of you are Zooming in from today?
DANIEL MARTINEZ
Thank you. I am in Brownsville, Texas.
RICHIE FLORES
Yeah, I'm Richie Flores. And I'm also calling from the Rio Grande Valley, South Texas, where I'm quarantining, working from, from home with my parents for a couple months.
Jenny
Wonderful. Well, Richie, I wonder if you could get us started and tell us a little bit about he history of METAS, and how you got involved with the program?
RICHIE FLORES
Sure, sure. I've uh been uh, for about 10 years, I ran a mentoring program for the National Federation of the Blind in Texas. And uh that's where I ran into our President, Conchita, who came and did a workshop for us and was part of a program that we were hosting. And she was leading some of our blindness skills trainings. And so through that friendship, I uh was able to be in a, you know, conversation with her when she was thinking up and dreaming up an idea with a couple other friends of ours, in potentially taking the positive energy that we share here in the United States with blind students and taking it to Mexico, where she was born, Conchita Hernandez. And uh wanted to just kind of give back in that way. And I thought it'd be a good idea to, to give that a shot with, with her and a couple other friends of ours. And in 2016, we went to a school for the blind in Mexico Guadalajara. And were able to, for about a week take over the school and, and have teachers learn from us on how we share positive blindness training with students. And we had about 35 students that we interacted with. We continued doing that for about two or three years. For about a week, we'd go out there and, and watch our other students that we met back in 2016 grow older and some of them would graduate from that elementary school and so it was really neat. So that's that's kind of where METAS began. And since then, we've developed into a, a, basically a program that offers Spanish communities that deal with blindness, services, consulting, but most importantly, just trying to create a positive energy around disability and access for Spanish communities in, in you know, that deal with blindness.
Jenny
That's wonderful. And I understand all of your programs are presented in Spanish as well, right?
RICHIE FLORES
Yes, yes, we uh, we provide all our services in Spanish. And now that we're doing a lot of virtual stuff, it's all captioned as well.
Jenny
Uh, what were some of the things you were doing in the schools, when you went down there initially, like the sort of practical methods you were bringing into there?
RICHIE FLORES
Sure. Basically, we, you know, a lot of our curriculum surrounds Braille, of course, Braille literacy, so reading and writing lessons, fun lessons. We also would bring a non visual training lesson, so learning how not to rely on you know, sight that may or may not be useful. And, you know, so learning how to do independent living skills, you know, utilizing non visual techniques, I was really involved in the O and M portion of the program (Orientation & Mobility). And so offering cane travel skills, and lessons for students to, to learn to, to feel more comfortable with their cane. And we also, you know, other than Braille and cane travel, and, you know, the daily living, we would also throw in some sports and recreation into that. So adapted sports was another program that I was really involved with. So that's how we would split up a lot of the lessons were, you know, reading, writing, independent living skills, cane travel, and then some fun adapted sports.
Jenny
Yeah, of course, because kids they want to play, right? I know, I read that you're actually uh an award winner in beep baseball, is that correct?
RICHIE FLORES
Yes, in 2014 with the Austin Blackhawks, I was able to win a World Series Championship, but the National Beep Baseball World Series, I now am a proud member of the San Antonio Jets. But beep baseball has been part of my life just like, you know, mentoring blind students for probably 15 years now.
Jenny
That's exciting. Can you just briefly for our listeners who aren't familiar with beep baseball, describe it for them?
RICHIE FLORES
Sure. I mean, if you want to definitely take a look at the NBBA, it's NBBA.org. And that's where you can, you know, go to the website and see all the different teams that are around the country. And we even have a few that are outside of the United States, we have a uh, a team out in the Dominican Republic, and in Taiwan, and Canada. And so it's a basically, a- America's favorite pastime, in adapted form for blind people and visually impaired people. There are- the point is to basically hit a pitched ball that uh a pitcher is on your team, who's the point is to try to get you to hit the ball, and the ball beeps. And there's two bases, a first base and a third base, that at random, when a ball is hit, will, will go off. And the, the point of the game is basically the offensive player after a hit ball has to make it to a buzzing base by the time the defense captures the ball out in the field. And if if they make it, it's a run, if they don't make it it's an out. Uh there's six players on each team. And yeah, I mean, that's that's basically the point of the game. It's really cool. You should probably, most folks should get on YouTube and just, you know, YouTube some beep baseball, if you can. The most recent World Series that was online was 2019 World Series, and uh you can go and watch that and you could see my team lose in the championship. (JENNY: (laughing) Oh no!)
And but it was pouring down rain and it was one of the funnest games I've ever been a part of uh either way.
Jenny
Well, that's that's a good attitude you have about it. Right? That sounds really fun, though. I'm definitely gonna check that out. Well, thank you for for sharing that with us as well. And you mentioned um, you know, Conchita the founder of the organization wanted to focus on services to Spanish speaking populations, particularly in Mexico, because of some educational disparities. I wonder if you could speak to maybe some differences between the American education system and the Mexican education system, particularly as it pertains blind students?
RICHIE FLORES
Sure. Yeah. Well, particularly most, you know, biggest difference is there's not a Special Education program. You know, you know, a lot of us benefit here in the United States from services, you know, you know, like, like a Talking Book program or, like a, you know, having a teacher of the visually impaired assigned to you and your school district, having a Special Ed team, having the IEP system, you know, all those acronyms don't really exist in, in Mexico. It's, it's more on, you know, it's very based on income. So if you have money to pay for those types of things, uh you can certainly find them. They're few and far between though, and, but most people don't have the income. And so usually blind students fall through the cracks in the education system there, a lot of them end up not continuing uh, you know, past elementary school and ending up, you know, trying to find, you know, the, the the either, you know, begging, you know, on the streets playing music on the streets, or joining, you know, stereotypical type work for blind people, you know, in Mexico, that that would either be again, you know, maybe begging or maybe cleaning something that, you know, after hours or, you know, a family business, that kind of thing. But, but there's really not a lot of opportunities. When it comes to services for the blind in Mexico. Uh they're getting better. But it changes pretty frequently with the changing of the government and different political systems in place. But, but yeah, there's not really a Special Education system, there's not an ADA to protect folks, when they get into the, you know, workforce or, or have problems within accessibility. It's very much a individual, income-based beneficiary program for, for most people who deal with disability in, in Mexico.
Jenny
Yeah, I think I think something I know, that I take for granted is the fact that, you know, in America, we have the Americans with Disabilities Act, which is coming up on 31 years. So I've, it's been in effect for most of my life. And I, you know, we forget how, how recent that is, as far as protections and guarantees that, uh disabled people will have equal access to education and opportunities, and it's not perfect, but um, but it is there. So without that you forget just how wide the disparity can be like you were saying, yeah. You mentioned too some of the trainings that you do with youth involve Braille literacy. What is, um Spanish language access to Braille materials? Like, is it? Is it widespread? Is it something that's growing? Is it yeah, if you could just talk about that a bit?
RICHIE FLORES
Yeah, I'm gonna toss that over to Daniel, since he (JENNY: Oh great!) kind of does a lot of kind of resource knowledge in that. So Danny, why don't you talk about the disparities in, you know, finding literacy and actual materials in Spanish.
DANIEL MARTINEZ
Yes, the disparity is quite a bit in the educational system, here in the United States, where we have many students whose first language is Spanish, we can consider any other language other than English. And it was a frequent comment that I hear from Spanish speaking families, that the teachers don't educate their children in the Braille code in Spanish because of the lack, because of the lack of resources. And recently, we've been uh compiling resources of different libraries, and it was the most noticeable how the Spanish selections and literacy literature was very small compared to the English collection. And it is important for students to obtain an education in their primary language, especially when they're in their early years. Learning English is obviously important as well. There's no lack of resources there. However, there's a lot of misinformation where parents are being told that, or students are being told that Braille is not a functional tool, that it's outdated, that because of technology, they can do away with not learning Braille. And that's a huge problem where, right now, only 10% of students who are supposedly learning Braille are being taught Braille. And the disparity, is a serious issue. Because right now, the unemployment rate is at 69% and that's pretty high in the blindness community. But when we consider that out of the percentage that is working, 90% of them are Braille literate? Well, that tells us that learning Braille or having a way to access information is a major factor in our well being in employment, in education.
RICHIE FLORES
Yeah, the lack of Braille literacy, I think, is an international crisis, in my opinion. You know, I think it goes beyond you know, not, you know, focusing on Braille when it comes to education, not only here in the United States, but but across the world, where, you know, it basically it's Braille is only taught to the, the blind people that don't have any sight at all, and we all know that blindness is a spectrum. And I think in, you know, other countries, they're still kind of getting to that portion where, okay, not only totally blind people need to learn Braille, but people who have any kind of vision problem where literacy, you know, isn't useful when they're when they're trying to use vision.
Jenny
Right. It's like you said, Daniel, it's another point of access, it's another, um another skill that can lead to employment and an opportunity that some people aren't being afforded, so. (DANIEL: Yes.) Yeah. And Daniel, you started out as a, as a mentee I think, as Richie mentioned, Richie was your mentor. And can you tell us a little bit about that experience for you and, and how that informed your work now, as a mentor with METAS?
DANIEL MARTINEZ
Yes, I went blind at the age of 11 in 2001 And in 2007, I received a call from Richie inviting me to participate in a mentoring program. Since I became blind up to that point, my educational system was going okay, I was receiving the services from the school district, according to my IEP. And I didn't have access to a blind role model, someone that demonstrate what was possible being a bling adult, right? Whether it was reading material in Braille, to organize, or using a cane efficiently to travel. And my experience as a mentee gave me the understanding that I have that same opportunity in my life, right. Richie was one of my mentors, but fortunatelyI've been able to find many people who, whom I learned what was possible, because of their example. And when I was in college, I had the opportunity to mentor a youth in my community. And witnessing the issues that he was having at school, and being able to provide him with mentoring to overcome those challenges was a valuable experience in my life. Being able to help um, his mother understand the educational system was important. Because by that time, I was already taking educational courses at the university level. And I realized that mentoring and education were things that I wanted to focus on. I identify as an educator and mentor. In my life, I love both to, um identify in what I do, right. And working with METAS has been great! Going to Guadalajara, Mexico to participate in the school for blind children, it impacted my life and I hope that we impacted the lives of the students. And after going a couple of times, we see the growth in the students. And we were happy to go back and we see the children growing and using their canes, and changing their mentality to, you know, the mentality of the parents and the mentality in the children. So that they can realize that, hey, if I want to get around, I need to use my cane. Right? I remember the first day when we arrived, we, we had a meeting with all the students. They were all in their classroom, and we invited them to, to the room where we were centered. And the students arrived with the help of volunteers. Out of the 12 students, or more or less 12, none of them have their cane on hand. So we started asking, "Hey, where's your cane?" They all had one, or most of them did. But their canes were by their backpack. They got there holding onto each other. In the front of, the of the row, they had a student with low vision, who needed a cane as well, but using the train system which is inefficient. They were getting there and they'll try fumbling for a chair and trying to obtain help from sighted volunteers. So right away, we asked them to return to their classroom and to come back with their cane. And that's part of our work to, to instill in them the, the understanding that the cane is going to be important in their lives, so that they don't need to depend on the, on the ineffective way of traveling in their own school.
Jenny
Yeah. And did, you did you see increased independence as far as cane usage after that?
DANIEL MARTINEZ
Right away, because the change is immediate right, because even though they might not have the best cane travel skills yet, because they were learning, the cane in their hand, can help them find the chair. Right. And that's why we were there to help them learn. One activity that Richie led and I helped was helping the students learn how to use their cane with the game Green Light, Red Light, right? We sit in the play yard at the school at one side of the yard. "Green Light!" the students would walk. "Red Light" and they would pause, right, and it became a game where they learned that using their cane well, they were not going to run into each other.
RICHIE FLORES
Yeah, one thing you know on the subject of canes and METAS, every year we go we bring a cane for every student. And we have two folks that will definitely want to, you know, shout out to and that's you know, the National Federation of the Blind in Texas has bought canes for students in Mexico and also a really cool program called You Cane Give and it's just a, a nonprofit out of Nashville, Tennessee who, who makes canes for folks just out of old canes that people donate, like broken ones he'll refurbish canes and, and uh so that's that's one thing that we're really proud of that not only do we try to bring Braille literacy items, but we try to bring everybody a cane. And. and that. that one instance of you know, going one day giving them their cane and they come in the next day and they didn't have them and then us having a big discussion about it, saying like, you know, anytime like the whole week that we're here we would really expect you guys to, to learn to, to love your cane. And uh, you know, we, they they participated and the teachers bought in and then Conchita showed up maybe like six months later cuz she was in Mexico doing some business and she walked in and everybody was still using the canes we brought them, not the one that they had from the school. So it was really cool that, she was really proud and she like sent us pictures and stuff.
Jenny
Aww, that's wonderful. Yeah, something, something that's small in a sense that it's, it's low cost to, to distribute can have such a huge impact on someone's life, you know?
DANIEL MARTINEZ
And also the fact that we were there using our teams moving around in an unfamiliar area, that has an impact with the parents, right? Where they realize, hey, the educator that's helping my child is blind, and they're using the cane. And that's an important fact.
Jenny
Absolutely. I'm sure you're both itching to get back to, to schools and to doing in person outreach work like this. But what have been some of the things you've been able to accomplish with METAS during this pandemic year we've had?
RICHIE FLORES
Yeah, we have, we've been more busy, I think now (laughs). Because it used to be like, we're gonna plan and we'll plan you know, to go for a week. And, you know, we've, we've, we know what it's like to work 40 hours, all of us kind of are working folks. And so when we go for for a week, that's pretty easy. But you know, you know, once you get done with your week, you're you got 50 or 51 other weeks to prepare for the next one. Where this, this time, because we're virtual, because we couldn't go to Mexico, we started a virtual series. And so every month, we have a Spanish webinar, and it's on a Saturday, I want to say it's three o'clock Eastern, in the US and, and it's also including just anybody who speaks Spanish, so folks who, you know, probably just learn better from Spanish or are Spanish speakers. So we do have a lot of folks signing in from the United States, from Mexico, from Guatemala, from Nicaragua, now, you know, Argentina, Colombia. So we're hitting a lot of other Spanish speaking countries, doing virtual programming, where we'll, you know, the topic could be canes, you know, one month it was, you know, the next month, it was about creating tactile, um tactile learning materials for your student in your own home for parents and, and teachers of the blind. Then the next month, it was on social skills, and how do we, how do we work with that, and, you know, and, and what's really neat with these virtual programs now is that, you know, because we're nonprofit and limited with finances, we can only send a team of three or four people, usually to these Mexico projects. Where with these, I mean we can use our network of friends and experts that we know that are comfortable presenting in Spanish and sharing their expertise. So it's basically allowing our mentor network to be utilized a little bit more frequently. And, and it's been fun to collaborate with that, but we're really proud of our virtual system, our virtual series of programs. And it's our hope that you know, that they continue further, even after the pandemic. And it, I think it's just something now a part of our, our main curriculum now is, is virtual learning, webinars.
DANIEL MARTINEZ
The collaborations have been important, for instance, working with a University in Mexico, led by Dr. Ana Diaz. She's working with her own students and the students are creating the tactile material, making short YouTube videos on how to decorate a Christmas tree, how to create different manipulatives for learning. I did one on how to make a banana shake. And most things are, are resources that we're able to upload on YouTube and have available for parents. We had a series on the alphabet, because Braille literacy is always important in our book. And collaborating with our network has led to important donations where people have broken machines, Braille machines, they donate them, and they're refurbished and there, they are gonna land in people's hands. We're gonna be using them in schools, um in people's houses, where they're going to make a difference.
RICHIE FLORES
Yeah, that is a, that is one really neat program. Thanks for bringing that up Danny, where we , we are taking Braille writers that either people aren't using or, or need to be fixed and just want to donate to us. And we have a partnership with actually a prison system, a women's prison system, I believe, out in California in Vacaville, California, that are refurbishing Braille writers for us. And they're, they're actually spray painting them, like really cool colors like purple, and pink and blue and stuff. So, and putting METAS stickers on them. So that we, I think we've already put about eight or nine Braille writers out there into, you know, the Spanish community. And again, that's not just for people in Mexico, it's anywhere. And it's probably even easier in the United States, because we could probably ship it Free Matter here to anybody who, who might need it in, you know, that is working with Spanish Braille students.
Jenny
That's great, that's great. I love that you've been able to reach people who may not have these types of organizations in their own countries, um but benefit from the Spanish language access. I know, just, you know, in the library world, we've definitely seen that. You know, of course, we miss having our patrons here in our locations, but especially with working in the Center for Accessibility, you know, we we serve people across a spectrum of disability, and some people are not able to get out of the house for whatever reason, or it's more difficult for them to access transportation, and that they can access our programming, um maybe for the first time, I think is is an unexpected benefit of these, you know, times that we're in.
RICHIE FLORES
Yeah.
Jenny
Yeah. So where, where do you see the future of METAS? What are, what are the, what are the big dreams for this organization?
RICHIE FLORES
Oh, I think, you know, definitely to continue a virtual outreach so that we can reach as many Spanish communities as possible. But then also to continue some hands-on learning. Back in 2019, uh we- was it 2019, Danny? Yeah, I think it was in 2019 when we had a conference in Guadalajara because Conchita was awarded the Holman Prize for Blind Ambition, which is a $25,000 award to, to kind of do a cool project. And our cool project had to do with METAS uh hosting a, a, pretty much a national conference for Mexico, as it relates to blindness. And we invited mostly professionals and parents and families. And so we had, we registered over 150 folks at that. And we offered, man I would say about 30 hours of, of various content from all different subject matters as it relates to blindness and disability. We left there with you know, setting up a actual kind of advocate, consumer advocacy group of folks who attended and say, "Hey, we want to kind of continue this and, and be a community and in empowerment together." And, and, and so we hope to continue doing stuff like that, you know, going and doing conferences for folks, we, we just are working with the US embassy to do some cool stuff for professionals in blindness in, in Nicaragua, or Guatemala. And so, so we, we're open to just move beyond Mexico, for sure. And to also serve those who need us here in the States who don't have, you know, access to the normal services as, as some of us do. And, and that's, that's pretty much it. I think it's mainly adopting this virtual webinar, adding that to all the other cool stuff that we already like to do.
DANIEL MARTINEZ
A program, a program that's being developed is a mentoring program, where we are compiling a list of mentors who are independent, blind adult professionals in the community, and making connections with families. Where on Facebook or social media and events where we're participating, we're receiving many questions, right, from from professionals and parents and people with disabilities. And we love to help, but we might not have the time necessary to help everyone that's contacting us. So being able to contact them with mentors that are able to provide assistance will be important.
Jenny
That's wonderful. Well, any, any other thoughts before we say goodbye today? I want to thank you both, again, for talking to us about this wonderful work that you're doing.
RICHIE FLORES
No, we thank you for offering us the opportunity to share on you know, what we have. I definitely recommend folks, if you want to follow our work to visit us, mainly Follow us on Facebook, that's where I feel we're most active. And so, follow us on Facebook, look for METAS, we're a nonprofit based out of Washington, DC. And you could find our GoFundMe through there and, you know, basically follow all our stories and see all the cool videos that we have with students, you know, walking up to a piñata with their cane and touching it and then whacking it with a stick and, you know, reading Braille with Daniel and, you know, singing some positive songs about blindness or, you know, with the guitars. And so that that's where I feel most people can really feel and, and really see what we're all about.
DANIEL MARTINEZ
And shout out to Dot Shop right now. In the March of, in the month of March, we have a fundraiser. Would you like to talk about that one, Richie?
RICHIE FLORES
Yeah. Oh, uh so you can find that also on our Facebook, look for Dot Shop, the Dot Shop, they make a lot of cool positive blindness, and I'll even just plug them in general. But you know, if you want Braille on a t-shirt, if you want Braille on a tumbler mug, if you want like a cool, you know, adapted form of a throw blanket or something cool. There, they can kind of do that for you. But they are supporting METAS right now there is a cool fundraiser. There's a lot of different little products you might be able to order, but the Dot Shop on Facebook.
JENNY
That's great. We'll make sure to link to your Facebook page in the podcast description too. So if you're listening, um you should be able to find that there. You can also read more about past projects on your website at METASInternational.org
And thank you again so much to Richie and Daniel and everyone at METAS for their great work. You just listened to "Access This" on the DC Public Library Podcast recorded from the Labs Recording Studio in the historic modernized Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown Washington, DC. If you're interested in accessible services right here in DC you can reach out to us at the Center for Accessibility at DCPL by emailing us at dcplaccess@dc.gov. Thanks for tuning in today.