Growing up, Taliah Braun remembers she was a super confident kid, despite being blind in one eye.
When she’d meet new friends at the park near her house, she wasn’t shy about showing her prosthetic eye from the get-go.
“I remember saying: ‘Look, I can pull out my eye!’ A lot of people would gawk and say: ‘That’s so creepy’ or whatever, but I didn’t really let that affect me,” she told CBC Kids News.
Despite her unwavering confidence, she found it lonely being the only kid she knew with a prosthetic eye.
She wanted to make sure other kids like her didn’t have to feel that way.
“I wanted kids across the world to stop feeling as alone as I did.
Last year, she launched a website called Vision Village, which connects kids ages 6 to 16 with vision impairments with one another.
She has helped dozens of people from around the world feel less alone with their visual difference.
In January 2020, when she was 13, she and her dad began building the concept for Vision Village: an online space where kids could sign up and be connected with a virtual pen pal who also shared a visual difference.
“I wanted kids across the world to stop feeling as alone as I did,” Taliah said.
In June 2021, Taliah finally launched the website.
Since then, the site has grown to 30 members who have been paired with one another.
On her website, Taliah includes tips for how pen pals can get to know each other better. Taliah said some people have even sent her money to help grow her website.
She said the next step is to get a Vision Village app.
“Now our goal is to go to some donors and businesses and ask for funds so that we can create an app that more easily allows members to connect,” she said.
