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NOS News•today, 12:38
Walking the entire Pieterpad in sixteen days, alone. That is the challenge that Wenneke Kempenaar (56) has taken on herself. At the same time, she raises as much money as possible for the Eye Fund. Quite an undertaking, because she only sees ten percent.
Wenneke has slowly lost most of her sight due to an eye disease. Her vision is blurred and she cannot distinguish color nuances. “I can still see ten percent. I always say: I walk in the fog all day,” she says to regional broadcaster Oost.
She walks the Pieterpad, a journey of more than 500 kilometers from Pieterburen in Groningen to the Sint-Pietersberg in Maastricht, alone. Without a guide, stick or dog. “If I want to prove anything, it is to myself that I can do this. That I do not have to lose my independence, despite my disability.”
Additional meters
She only sees the red and white signs that indicate the route when she is right next to them. “So I make a lot of extra meters, looking for the posts,” says Kempenaar. “But so far it’s going very well, I haven’t needed a helpline yet.”
The tour is a personal challenge for Kempenaar, but also a way to draw attention to eye diseases and raise money for the Eye Fund. “There are many eye conditions for which there is no treatment yet. Thanks to the Eye Fund, research is being conducted into treatments and the prevention of eye diseases.”
It’s an extra incentive to keep it up, she says: “When I get through it for a while, I think, I’m not just doing it for myself, but also for all those others with eye conditions.”
Kempenaar hopes to raise at least eight thousand euros in this way. She is now almost half way through. “People I speak to along the way think what I do is very special. I often see that reflected in the donations, which is very nice.”
