Orientation and Mobility Training Returns to Sights for Hope with Expert Educator

By Sights for Hope Team |
Two women stand in a doorway, smiling. The woman in front uses a white cane and wears sunglasses. The scene conveys a joyful, supportive atmosphere.

Sights for Hope has resumed individualized orientation and mobility training for its clients with the addition of an expert educator.

Tesia Nasehi is a Statewide Blindness and Visual Impairment Family Support Specialist for the Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network (PaTTAN) who has been working with Sights for Hope clients for about eight months. She is one of approximately 4,000 orientation and mobility, or O&M, specialists in North America certified by the Academy for Certification of Vision Rehabilitation & Education Professionals (AVCREP).

Orientation and mobility training teaches people with permanent visual impairments and blindness to navigate their homes and surroundings safely, independently, and confidently. Individuals typically receive multiple O&M lessons over relatively short periods. O&M skills should ideally be among the first learned by a person after losing much or all of their eyesight.

Sights for Hope had been without individual O&M instructors since the retirements of its three contract educators. Sights for Hope continued to teach O&M techniques informally in some of its other Life Skills Education classes. Through July 2025, Nasehi has provided 67 O&M lessons to 11 Sights for Hope clients.

Nasehi has taught previously at the Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia, PA, and at the Colorado School for the Blind. She also is the daughter of Lee Nasehi, President and CEO of VisionServe Alliance – a network of North American organizations that serve people with permanent visual impairments of which Sights for Hope is a member.

“We are fortunate and grateful to work with someone with Tesia’s credentials and knowledge, especially when such talent is scarce,” said Jennifer Pandolfo, Sights for Hope’s Associate Director and Director of Services. “She is a welcome addition to a team that includes many of the best industry professionals in Pennsylvania, and our clients are excited to have our formal O&M services return.”

Sights for Hope has empowered people to conquer and prevent the challenges of visual impairments and blindness since 1928. Sights for Hope’s services strengthen skills, deliver supports, champion solutions, and build self-confidence for its clients, its patients, and the people in its communities. Founded from a challenge made by Helen Keller, Sights for Hope is proud to carry that tradition forward in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley and Monroe County. Sights for Hope is a member of the Pennsylvania Association for the Blind (PAB).

Image: Two women stand in a doorway, smiling. The woman in front uses a white cane and wears sunglasses. The scene conveys a joyful, supportive atmosphere.