OUR VISION
To enable the visually impaired to become economically independent and socially connected through training, sports recreation, and the arts.
About Hein Wagner Academy
The Hein Wagner Academy was founded in 2019 by blind extreme adventurer and motivational speaker, Hein Wagner. Hein was born blind and attended the Pioneer School for the Blind in Worcester from the age of five.
The Blind Man with Vision
Hein Wagner may have been born blind, but he never allowed this to cloud his vision. The moniker, ‘The Blind Man with Vision’, sets the scene for a story that is both unconventional and inspirational.
Visual impairment puts you on the back foot from the onset. You are offered praise and participation trophies just for pitching up and placed on a pedestal for minor achievements. And yet, excellence is hardly ever obtained through mediocrity. One cannot win a race by focusing on fairness or obsessing over others' abilities and privileges. You win the race by focusing on your own strengths and talents.
Visual impairment doesn't impair aspiration, inspiration or ingenuity.
While it requires patience, it's also a catalyst for action and instils an attitude of purpose: of searching, evaluating, mining, refining and repurposing one's own potential.
Your perspective and attitude switches from recipient to contributor, user to provider, consumer to producer, beneficiary to benefactor, learner to mentor.
🎙️ Radio Feature · Primedia Cares 2024
Hein Wagner Academy & Primedia Cares Epic Radio Commercial
Our Foundations
OUR MISSION
To bridge the gap between being dependent and being independent for the visually impaired by providing specialised training in an environment focused on the needs and development of persons living with vision loss.
OUR PROMISE
We promise to take you from as far as your fingers can reach to as far as you dare to dream. We will enable you to be the inspiration the world so desperately needs by supporting you to reach your full potential.
Share Our Vision
Our goal is not merely to teach basic life skills to the visually impaired but empowering them to become leaders in their respective fields.
- Become economically independent
- Contribute expertise in their respective fields
- Persevere in high-pressure environments
- Take accountability for their duties and deliverables
- Provide innovative solutions to complex problems
- Commit to continued self-improvement
- Promote growth and competencies of their colleagues
- Engage socially with their organisations and communities
- Reciprocate trust put in them
- Invest in welfare and upliftment of those less privileged
The Answer is Agency
The Hein Wagner Academy doesn't believe in mediocrity. We teach our learners that they cannot succeed by fixating on what they lack or what they're given, but on what they have to offer.
From Burden to Brilliance
The Hein Wagner Academy would not exist without the goodwill and support of others. We rely on sponsorships, donations, promotion and learnership opportunities offered by our local and international communities. And yet we want to change the narrative around 'charity'. We want the world to share our vision of giving which is not rooted in sympathy alone, but aimed at camaraderie. Return on social investment is greatest when recipients climb the hierarchy of needs without a ceiling of subsistence to stifle their potential.
Let the Blind Lead
The blind needn't lead the blind alone; they can transcend conventional notions of sight to lead the vision of organisations, industries, and communities alike.
Ready to take the next step?
Explore our accredited training programmes or partner with us to change more lives.