Employers Wariness Thwarts Many Blind Jobseekers
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) -- Back in the late 1980s, when Maura Mazzocca was a human resources administrator with a Boston-area firm, a blind man showed up to apply for a job. Today, she remembers the encounter ruefully.
"What I kept thinking about was, `How can this man work in a manufacturing company?'" Mazzocca recalled, saying she looked past his abilities and saw only his disability.
"I wish now I'd given him a chance."
That reflectiveness is heartfelt. Mazzocca lost her own eyesight in 1994 through complications related to diabetes. Now as a jobseeker herself, she knows firsthand the many hurdles the blind must overcome in pursuit of full-time work.
At a job fair last month for blind and low-vision people, there she was going table to table, with a sighted volunteer by her side. Some of the other 80 jobseekers carried white canes, a few had guide dogs.
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