Welcome
This is Cricket.
Cricket is blind.
This is Devon.
Devon is a guide dog.
Help bring blind children like Cricket together with guide dogs like Devon.
Support MIRA Foundation USA, providing guide and service dogs to the blind and disabled children of America.
There are a large number of legally blind children and adults living in North Carolina and surrounding states who would benefit from having a wonderful guide dog by their side. MIRA FOUNDATION USA, INC. was founded by Robert Baillie, himself a guide dog user, as a non-profit corporation established to provide not only guide dogs but also training and services free of charge to qualified visually impaired individuals.
Having a guide dog makes a tremendous difference in the life of a blind individual, giving them the freedom and mobility to be more independent and self reliant. For children and adults alike, a guide dog also provides a bridge between the sighted and non-sighted, diminishing the stigma often associated with blindness. Although MIRA FOUNDATION USA, INC. will provide guide dogs to all those who qualify, our special focus is on children 11 years of age and above, an age group which is largely overlooked by other guide dog schools in the U.S. that provide guide dogs to children ages 16 and above.
MIRA FOUNDATION USA, INC. is presently raising funds that will enable us to build a guide dog facility here in Moore County, North Carolina. In the interim, we are also raising funds to purchase guide dogs and training services from MIRA Canada, chosen because it is the only guide dog school in North America that provides guide dogs and training for children as young as 11 years of age. Their youth program, in operation since 1991, has been highly successful and we are modeling our guide dog program after theirs. (Click here to visit the MIRA Canada website.) The success of their youth program results from the emphasis placed on the evaluation and determination of each child’s spatial representational skill set as well as the emphasis placed on each child’s mental and physical maturational state and also the emphasis placed on the parents’ commitment to be continuously involved in all levels of training.
Initially our guide dog recipients will travel to Canada to pick up their guide dogs and for training with their dogs. When we have acquired the funds necessary for purchasing or building our own facility in North Carolina, all training will take place at MIRA FOUNDATION USA, INC.