Feach - Life Through Our Eyes - Conference

This event will highlight the experiences of living in Ireland today with a vision impairment.

Our keynote speaker is the inspirational Mark Pollock who lost his vision at 22, Mark broke his back in 2010, yet he leads an extraordinary and an ordinary life. Mark is a fascinating speaker, Féach is honoured that he has made the time to join our conference and share his thoughts.

Mark will be joined by Bobbie Hickey, who will share her wit and wisdom, which have both helped her navigate school, college and work, with deteriorating vision.

Finally we will talk to a panel of college students and working young people with vision impairment who will share the good, the bad and the reality of their life.

"Nothing about us without us" is a core value of Féach, this conference will give a voice to young people with vision impairment and create awareness around how we can make positive changes. Their shared experience is important for parents, school staff, disability services, inclusion services and other young people coming behind them. Together we will change the narrative around vision impairment.

As Mark says

"start with the facts, accept you've got options, then get focused on turning hope into reality"

This is an over 12s event.

Mark Pollock – Explorer, Speaker & Founder Everything Mark Pollock does is about inspiring leaders and their teams to build resilience and collaborate with others so that they achieve more than they thought possible. Unbroken by blindness in 1998, Mark became an adventure athlete competing in ultra-endurance races across deserts, mountains, and the polar ice caps including being the first blind person to race to the South Pole. He also won silver and bronze medals for rowing at the Commonwealth Games and set up an international motivational speaking business. In 2010, a fall from a second story window nearly killed him. Mark broke his back and the damage to his spinal cord left him paralysed. Now he is on a new expedition, this time exploring the intersection where humans and technology collide to cure paralysis in our lifetime. Chairman of Collaborative Cures and founder of the global running series Run in the Dark, Mark was selected by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader, served on the Global Futures Council on Human Enhancement and the Advisory Board of Cybathlon. He is a Wings for Life Ambassador (Europe) and was on the Board of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation (USA) for a decade. Author of ‘Making It Happen’, Mark is the subject of the acclaimed documentaries' Blind Man Walking ’and ‘Unbreakable – The Mark Pollock Story’. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and also from Queens University Belfast. Furthermore, he holds a diploma in Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century from Harvard University, degrees from Trinity College Dublin and UCD Smurfit Graduate Business School.

Service providers such as Vision Ireland, ChildVision, Reading Services, Vision Sports, Irish Guide Dogs, Sight and Sound Technologies, & Fact Factory will all have exhibits.

Griffith College is an accessible venue with

• Driving - 350 parking spaces
• Bus Routes – all pass through the City Centre: 9, 16,49, 54a & 122
• Dublin Bikes – The nearest station to the college is located in Portobello.
• Luas – The nearest Luas stop to the college is located on Harcourt Street.