r/Blind • u/Remote_Investment_22 • 9d ago
Should I join NFB?
Has anyone joined NFB or ACB and attended their meetings? What’s it like? Is it more like a support group or more for community service? I haven’t read good things about NFB on Reddit.
4
u/MusicLover035 Glaucoma 8d ago
I'm apart of the NFB. THE's a lot of divisions you can join, based off your interest. There's a pretty big student division, but there's also divisions like performing arts and writing. Older people tend to go to chapter meetings, however. I would suggest you look into the philosophy of both organizations to see which one is better for you. A lot of things are more community-based, like raising awareness of blind people out in the public and speaking to Senators and Congress in February.
6
u/askablindperson LCA 8d ago
I’ve been involved with the NFB since I was 16 years old and have honestly had a pretty darn good experience. As for whether the activities are more social or community action oriented, it really depends on the chapter or division. There are definitely some chapters that skew much more heavily toward the social gathering Once a month at a local restaurant type of vibe, but most of the ones I’ve been a part of have been more community action oriented, particularly in big cities where there are a lot of people to make community actions possible. At my current local chapter for instance, the agenda is usually jampacked with business. We do a little bit of catching up on personal stuff at the beginning, but then we pretty immediately get into treasurers and secretaries reports, fundraising initiatives, blindness awareness raising activities we are planning in the community, Local community issues that are relevant to us like our local transportation system or our local pharmacy accessibility options, checking in with the national presidential report to see what’s happening at the national level and how we can build on it at the local level, and philosophy discussions plus blindness tips and tricks/life hacks. And then a lot of the time we will add more social opportunities on top of that just to make it feel friendlier. Like some months we will plan a ceramics workshop or something people can sign up for after the chapter meeting, or do a holiday party or summer picnic, and of course plenty of Individual members who are friends with each other going out to lunch and stuff afterward. I was also involved in the NFB student division for a long time, which is a great place to go if you’re young and in high school or college and wanting to do advocacy for students and hang around with more blind people your age. Mine again was very community action oriented, But that’s not to say that are zero social aspects by any means. When you’re doing it right, you tend to get a good balance of both, so that you’re getting valuable important stuff done, but you’re also enjoying yourself along the way and making lifelong friends.
2
2
u/Same-Test7554 8d ago
I’m a part of ACB and have been since I received a scholarship for college. As a whole, ACB is on the older side. Think 30s+. There is a college age group but that’s for people in university at the moment. May I ask how old you are? It would help so I can give recs on certain special affiliates.
3
u/Remote_Investment_22 8d ago
I am 20 years old and live in a decently sized city. I know NFB has a student division of some sort.
4
u/razzretina ROP / RLF 8d ago
If there's a student division in your city those people are likely to be younger. It very much depends on location with NFB chapters in my experience, with larger cities having more diverse age ranges of participants and members.
2
u/DHamlinMusic Bilateral Optic Neuropathy 8d ago
NFB is about the same, though possibly more like 45+ on average, my local chapter When I was still going I was one of 2 regulars under 55.
6
u/dmazzoni 8d ago
The NFB national convention has a lot of young people.
Local chapter meetings are all over the place, it depends on where you live. I think a lot of young people don't have time for local chapter meetings but enjoy the larger conventions
1
u/jdash54 8d ago
NFB meetings I attendedd were highly unprofessional more personal stories than anything else with no national agenda items having been handled. nfb has a technical lab in Baltimore solely focused on computer technology to support employers. ACB could open their own technical lab and effectively compete with nfb by stocking the lab with the new home cooking appliances and testing those appliances and writing up which ones fail accessibility tests. This is an area nfb hasn’t touched and acb could address cooking and other home appliances in their technical lab. Do I think any of this gets done? A million years in the future maybe.
3
u/Rencon_The_Gaymer 8d ago
NFB is ok. Their main shtick is self reliance and blindness training,which while good,only do so much. Their scandals in years past with sexual misconduct in the organization are why I just stopped going to the chapter meetings/student division (I didn’t go through anything it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back). I’m thankful for them,but if you want more of an open community blindness org,try ACB. They even have an LGBT members sub division!
1
u/Snookerdee3 8d ago
I would highly recommend the NFB, I’m a member in Wisconsin. it’s very much like a support group, but our business is bettering the blind community
1
u/BassMarigold 8d ago
The NFB organization has some super strong opinions. But I’ve found many NFB members don’t hold those as strongly. I don’t agree with everything NFB says but have made friends at conventions. I don’t live in a city and there are no in person meetings nearby.
Join both and find out which one you like. I met many students at through NFB that were cool. I don’t think the NFB really holds space for people who are low vision. I feel like they pressure them to identify as blind or learn braille. I think if your best corrected vision is 20/70 with full fields that’s not blind.
1
1
u/WEugeneSmith Glaucoma 8d ago
I belong to a local group in Ohio. I am planning to get more involved this year. I find the NFB literature to be informative.
1
u/gammaChallenger 6d ago
I recently joined the nfb as of like august and I would recommend going to a meeting usually the meetings is based on club type business and then they may have a program. I wasn’t sure for a long time and was like I am proud I am part of neither of these loser organizations!!!!!! Haha! But my boyfriend was part of the chicago chapter and I was like I guess I will give it a try I have heard a lot about their sexual misconduct stuff bsoooooooo I don’t know!!!!! And people doing bed hopping at conventions but what harm is giving it a try?
Acb is more of a group where is not as organized and more social based but nfb isn’t like that
The best way to know is to go no one is going to take a bite off of your arm or anything this year since I joined in august I went to the state convention and had a good time there was a lot of business type stuff but there was a lot of fun meeting and chatting with people sometimes they have fun activities too like a class on taking pictures and a self defense type class and they had a sort of open mic type of deal to funraise for the students
1
2
u/HunnadGranDan 8d ago
I'm a member of both and it seems like the ACB offers more training opportunities. For example, there is a subgroup of ACB called blind information technology specialists the offers courses ranging from Python to office 365. The BITS python course was very informative to me and they even gave us a free book share subscription for a Python textbook.
1
u/autumn_leaves9 8d ago
I don’t commit to any organization. Try out different ones, meet lots of people and see how you feel.
1
u/Ok-Virus-2198 8d ago
I know that NFB has WhatsApp group with subchats for students. But, I'm a member at at ACB.
9
u/Triskelion13 8d ago edited 8d ago
I'm a member of the nfb in New York. First, I don't know about ACB (which split off from the nfb), but with the NFB, you don't have to be a member to attend our meetings, I would guess with the ACB as well. What I would suggest is try to attend your local meetings while reading NFB literature like the braille monitor and the kernel books. Getting into it will give you a far better idea of whether or not you want to commit than anything I say here. In really depends on the local chapters. I actually supposedly have a local chapter but attend the meetings of a chapter in another county because mine is pretty dead. We function as a combination of what you said on a needs basis. General meetings will start with people briefly introducing themselves, then a philosophy discussion, then depending on the month we might be talking about a new piece of technology, a law we need passed... It really depends.
Here are some links to literature, which would give you some idea about our thought process and philosophy.
https://nfb.org/resources/jacobus-tenbroek-library/collections/kernel-books
Blindness—Handicap or Characteristic
Braille monitor