Blind Christchurch mother and daughter tackle the school run on foot, together
Getting two young children ready for school in the morning is never easy. It is made even more difficult for Christchurch mother Loren Harris, who is blind.
Harris was born with cataracts and developed glaucoma following her surgery at 19. Her left eye is a prosthetic and the right eye has low, deteriorating vision. She has very a limited peripheral field and her central vision is blurry.
Until three years ago, Harris was independent and mobile. She worked, could see "relatively well" and did not need a lot of assistance. When she suddenly lost a significant amount of vision, her life changed drastically.
But nothing can stop Harris getting her daughter Saxton, 2, off to pre-school. On sunny mornings, they walk; if it's raining, they catch a bus then walk the rest of the way.
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Some Choice News!
DOC is rolling out a new tool to help figure out what to tackle first when it comes to protecting our threatened species and the things putting them at risk.
Why does this matter? As Nikki Macdonald from The Post points out, we’re a country with around 4,400 threatened species. With limited time and funding, conservation has always meant making tough calls about what gets attention first.
For the first time, DOC has put real numbers around what it would take to do everything needed to properly safeguard our unique natural environment. The new BioInvest tool shows the scale of the challenge: 310,177 actions across 28,007 sites.
Now that we can see the full picture, it brings the big question into focus: how much do we, as Kiwis, truly value protecting nature — and what are we prepared to invest to make it happen?
We hope this brings a smile!
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