The Volunteer's Voluntell, with Martin, Greg and Myurika

In light of April being National Volunteer month in North America, we decided to shine the spotlight on three of our wonderful volunteers here at Balance for our next instalment of Living Blind. Or, as we like to call it, The Volunteer’s Voluntell! Join Naomi Hazlett as she sits down with Myurika Sithamparanathan, Martin Courcelles, and Greg Pickios. These three have very different responsibilities with the organization, with Myurika operating on the front lines with clients, and Martin serving behind the scenes with the board of directors. And Greg, well, has a foot in both camps.

Greg Pickios has Worked for a number of years in a marketing capacity for the internet division of various media companies. He recently went back to college to earn a Diploma as a Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy Assistant, and currently works as an OTA and PTA. Volunteering with Balance has allowed him the opportunity to marry these two passions, and improve the lives of the blind and low vision clients he works with. Additionally, He serves as the transcriber of the Living Blind podcast, and we thank him very much for his continued hard work.

Myurika Sithamparanathan immigrated to Canada when she was 10 years old, and is a recent graduate from the University of Toronto, with an honours bachelor of science degree. Her passion for helping people with various needs started from a young age, and she has volunteered at BALANCE for 2 years. In that time she has served as a tele-support counselor, a life skills assistant, the facilitator for Coffee Connections, and much more. Her passion for volunteering to help those in the community stems from the work her father did as a field staff in Sri Lanka, supporting displaced people and their families during the Civil war.

Martin courcelles brings over 15 years of expertise in the realm of screen reading technology, and currently works at CIBC on the accessibility team as a User Experience Accessibility consultant. As a person with lived experience having to use access technology every day, Martin explains how to improve web properties and smartphone apps to ensure accessibility for all. He’s a subject matter expert at using JAWS, NVDA and Narrator on the PC, and Voiceover and Talkback on smartphones.

He became a Balance client back in 1999, when he required orientation and mobility training around the city of Toronto. Wanting to give back to the community and to the organization that was there for him when he needed help, he has enjoyed his time volunteering as a member on our board of directors so much, he’s come back twice! In his downtime, Martin enjoys running, hiking, tandem cycling and other outdoor activities.

Links:

Follow Greg on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-pickios-62544315/

Follow Myurika on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/myurika-sithamparanathan-hbsc-a67034225/

Send her an email: MYURIKAS@gmail.com.

Follow Martin on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-courcelles-57271915/

And on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/martin.courcelles/

IF you would like to volunteer at Balance, please visit https://www.balancefba.org/volunteer-at-balance/

What did you think of The Volunteer’s Voluntell? Get in touch with the podcast by joining our Listeners Facebook group, or by sending us an email at LivingBlindPodcast@BalanceFBA.org.

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The show notes and transcription for this podcast can be found at BalanceFBA.org/Podcast.

Donate to BALANCE: BalanceFBA.org