Blind MasterChef winner Christine Ha is the face of month-long campaign this International Women’s Day

She created history by becoming the first visually impaired person to win the coveted MasterChef title in 2013. Today, eight later Christine Ha has made a name for herself in the culinary world. She has a best-selling cookbook called Recipes from My Home Kitchen: Asian and American Comfort Food to her credit, has travelled around the world to give talk about her experiences as a blind cook, been a judge on MasterChef Vietnam and owns a Vietnamese restaurant in Houston, Texas named The Blind Goat.

That’s an incredible range of achievements which makes her the apt face for a month-long campaign to mark the International Women’s Day this year.

Campaign highlights women with disabilities

Called #HowYouSeeMe, the campaign by Eone aims to rally its community to fight for women’s rights and hopes to ignite change by encouraging women to share stories of empowerment and success. Like the Eone watch, which was designed to be inclusive of people with vision impairments, the campaign highlights women with disabilities. Christine will kick off the campaign with her story about the barriers she overcame in becoming the first blind winner of MasterChef.

“International Women’s Day is about gender equality and inclusivity, to give everyone equal respect and treatment, platform and voice. Regardless of ability, race, religion, or sexual orientation”, says Christine.

Together, Eone and Christine speak out against stereotypes and the obstacles that come from social inequality. Along with Christine the campaign features Paralympian Mallory Weggemann, and three other athletes.

Eone is a well-known timepiece company which designs universally inclusive watches for everyone – including the visually impaired. The team launched their product onto Kickstarter in 2013 after a year of research, development and testing with a diverse, focus group; raising nearly $600,000 USD by the end of the campaign. Since then, Eone has worked closely with ophthalmology specialists and NGOs such as The Seeing Eye, Vision Care US Kilimanjaro Blind Trust to name a few.

The company named the timepiece after a former United States Navy officer Bradley Snyder, who became blind while serving as a bomb diffuser in Afghanistan. Snyder went on to win five gold medals in swimming at the 2012 and 2016 Paralympics.

“Brad persevered after his injury, learning how to thrive in a world that wasn’t designed for people with vision impairments. We chose Brad as our spokesperson because of his dedication to breaking down barriers for people who are blind — speaking out against stereotypes and proving that the obstacles of living with a disability come from social inequality and not from disability itself”, says Daniel, who heads products, press and collaborations for Eone.

Watch this video to know more about Christine’s journey:

To know more about Christine’s restaurant The Blind Goat, click here