Project iCare working with partners Sheffield Royal Society for the Blind
On Friday 2nd December we were invited to Badsley Moor Rehabilitation Centre to offer accessibility training to people with all levels of visual impairment. We have not held an event in Rotherham before and with our partners from Sheffield Royal Society for the Blind we decided to put on our first joint event in the town.
There are a high number of visually impaired people in the town and as I know from personal experience there is currently not a great deal of support available. I know in the future SRSB are looking to be more proactive in the area and with us having an O2 store in the town, it made it the perfect opportunity for us to showcase what Project iCare can do to help.
On this occasion, I was joined by Rotherham store Guru Joe Veitch. The event had a high turnout and the people that attended all had different knowledge on how accessibility could help them in their daily lives. Some of the attendees had smartphones but had no knowledge or training on how to use the basic functions.
The first thing we did was spilt the group up in to two so those that had more experience using smartphones learnt more about which apps could help and enhance their independence. Whereas, I took the beginners and gave them basic training which was very well received and some of the people there had android devices and didn’t know the phone had a voice over function. As they thought this type of phone was only available from specialist retailers. Again, this goes to show that there is so much knowledge we need spread about an average smart phone being able to make such a huge difference to the visually impaired.
The event was a huge success and every single person who attended managed to gain some knowledge on smartphones. We hope to visit them again next year and hopefully we will be able to carry on teaching the visually impaired community of Rotherham about how accessibility can help them in their daily lives.
