Tayla Fitton, 18, is a creative writing student and an aspiring author and now her dreams are much closer thanks to a bursary from Vision Australia.
At nine months old Tayla was diagnosed with Retina Blastoma, a cancer on the retina in her eyes. Doctors were able to treat Tayla’s right eye but her left eye was removed and replaced with a prosthetic eye. “It’s funny when people ask me what condition I have because I actually don’t have anything now but I had something that has affected my whole life. I can only see things less than a metre away now.”
“It was hardest during primary school. Everyone was young and they didn’t understand.”
‘Vision Australia has been there pretty much all of my life. My mum can back me up on that. They were especially useful last year during HSC. It was a really hard time. It was a mess. I contacted the Vision Australia counsellor in Coffs Harbour and it really helped.’
“I’ve always loved creative writing ever since I was a child. I would write pretty much every day about life. During HSC I got some people from my class to act out my drama script and I was sitting there crying watching. I worked so hard on it and I was so relieved at the end.”
Tayla, who is now a Bachelor of Creative Writing student at Southern Cross University, received her bursary in February. “The assistive technology I have thanks to the Vision Australia bursary has made accessing information easier. When a lecturer walks into class with a hand-out, I can just scan it using Pearl and I can read it using JAWS. When I download an e-book it even tells me when it’s overdue.”
“I have a lot of goals for myself,’ Tayla laughs. ‘I would love to be an onstage actress, record music and write my own scripts and novels.”
Vision Australia’s Further Education Bursaries ensure that people who are blind or have low vision have every opportunity to achieve the best possible education. These bursaries are funded by members of the public and assist clients to continue with tertiary education in any field.
There is now a wide range of assistive technology available for students who are blind or have low vision and the bursaries are used to purchase this equipment.Download Tayla Fitton media release