Terelga Bald moved to Worcester from Johannesburg after losing her sight to glaucoma in 2020.
Not allowing this impediment to prevent her from living an exciting life, she enrolled at the Beauty Therapy Institute (BTI) from which she recently graduated with a qualification in reflexology.
Interestingly, Bald was the first blind student the BTI had ever had, aside from being its very first graduate since its inception in May.
“I have always liked working with people, so I decided to see if I could study at the BTI when I came to Worcester,” she said.
Arriving in the town in April, Bald joined the Innovation for the Blind non-profit organisation, where she was taught to navigate the world without having to rely on her sight.
Today she has mastered this art and moved on to a new career path in the health and wellness sector, “something different” to the life coaching she practised until 2020.
“I came to class every day,” Bald said, an endeavour that, more often than not, was challenging owing to the new skills she had to learn now that she no longer had sight.
“Many times I had to work late into the evenings because I had to go to Innovation for the Blind during the day,” she said.
But she comes to this new chapter with myriad experiences, having been employed in the banking sector as well as the High Court in Johannesburg, before entering the field of life coaching after completing a degree in psychology.
These occupations were also not without their challenges, for Bald had only 5% sight from the age of 3, the casualty of a congenital disease.
“It took me 10 years to finish my degree in psychology, because I had to read through a magnifying glass,” Bald said. In this time she also raised two young daughters, juggling the roles of motherhood, working adult and student, all the while being partially sighted.
Bald found she had to negotiate a very challenging world after losing her sight completely, yet she did not allow this to stop her from striving to achieve her dreams and goals.
“It may just be reflexology, but to me it is about not giving up on life,” she declared.
An exciting new journey lies ahead for Bald, for she will soon start seeing clients and further her studies in aromatherapy messages at the BTI in Worcester.
