Alberto Ferreras |
Zamora (EFE) election on July 23.
The young blind man from Nuez de Aliste (Zamora) and resident of Valladolid Miguel Fernández Páez, 28, regretted that after being called to be a substitute member of a polling station, instead of providing him with the means to be able to carry out this work in case that the titular member did not attend, he was invited to present allegations to be excluded from that task due to his blindness.
The indignation of this young sports journalist stems from his experience after he received at his home the notification to attend on July 23 and, after presenting his case by telephone to the Electoral Board of the Valladolid area, from that body they did not offer him facilities to to adapt the work of table member to his disability, but it was suggested to him that the best thing he could do was plead to get rid of it.
He argued and was excluded but in his letter he also stated the “dysfunction and ineffectiveness” that meant that he was called first and then excluded because he was totally blind, although this did not have to be an obstacle.
It would not even be necessary for the list of voters at your polling station to be in Braille, it would suffice to have it in text format and have a suitable computer program.
“It is easy to do if you want, the thing is to want, to have the will,” declared Miguel Fernández, who regretted that the electoral board never asked him what he needed if he wanted to act as a member or how they could contact ONCE to adapt the work to his visual disability.
“I told them how I could carry out this work because although I am not particularly excited, it has touched me, it is my right, it is a new experience”, but the answer they gave him was that his task would be independent from that of the other member and they did not have nothing adapted so it would be best to claim to be excluded.
Talk about integration but “without lifting a finger”
“It’s a bit hypocritical to talk about integration and then, at the moment of truth, not lift a finger”, assured this blind journalist, who has recognized that it doesn’t really matter to him to go or not go, but what What bothers him is “the background” for which he cannot act as a vowel.
Regarding the right to vote, Miguel Fernández, who has exercised it for ten years, explained that although there are ballots in Braille, in his case he has never had to resort to them because he has gone to vote with his mother, with whom he has “Complete trust”.
“The masked baseball player” from Youtube
The discomfort of this visually impaired person is even greater after seeing how in his case he has overcome more difficult challenges, such as having a Youtube channel called “El pelotero del antifaz”, in which he does sports analysis and broadcasts live matches and events.
For the direct ones, as he explained, he is guided by the real-time chronologies of the matches on Twitter and is used as support for radio or television broadcasts.
Based on this information, he makes his own narration of the match in which there is no lack of the rhythm of the live broadcasts, the sports jargon, the contextualizations and the complementary information of players and teams.
His was the first Youtube channel in Spanish created and managed by a blind sports journalist and after a year of experience it already has close to seven hundred subscribers and more than 47,000 views.
What cannot be seen on the “El pelotero del mask” channel is how a sports journalist puts preseason games and the latest signings aside to act as a board member in the July 23 elections.