Group hopes to boost funds to help the blind (From Gazette & Herald)

Group hopes to boost funds to help the blind

A GROUP which helps blind and partially sighted people in Ryedale is anxious to boost its funds to improve their quality of life.

The work of the In-Touch Group, is centred on a green portakabin in Malton's Wentworth Street car park where former top educationalist Rachel Popham masterminds a catalogue of services aided by a strong team of volunteers.

For ebullient Rachel, running the service is a dramatic change of career after being the head of two schools, a moderator, a lecturer and an OFSTED inspector.

She was, she says, "the group's lottery prize" when, desperate for help and money, it sought funding from the National Lottery which provided a grant towards running costs and providing transport.

The group itself started several years ago when it was run by the Hull and East Riding Blind Society in Norton when the town was still in the East Riding.

It was temporarily taken over by North Yorkshire Social Services Department and then by volunteers, lead by its then-organiser Brian Crookes.

"In-Touch reached the situation where it had to have a paid organiser or fold because of the workload," said Rachel, who moved to Malton with her husband from Melton Mowbray.

As a headteacher, one of her most rewarding achievements was to help a primary schoolgirl lead a normal academic life.

But she says while blind youngsters do get good support in schools, adults have little.

"I was horrified at the lack of help. People think the problems of blind people are solved by guide dogs but it is just not true. They are the most expensive way of supporting them."

And, she adds: "The percentage of people who can use a guide dog is very small, especially as 80pc of blind and partially-sighted people are over 65 and cannot cope with a large dog."

Her group, which has some 60 members, covers a large rural area of up to a 15-mile radius of Malton.

"We enable them to give mutual aid to each other and provide support to counter the social, emotional and practical problems arising from serious sight loss," said Rachel.

"We aim to ensure that visual impairment does not exclude our members from activities that others take for granted."

As well as the fortnightly meetings it holds, the group is given a wide range of services including foot care screening, help from a community care worker, and one of its successes was to publish a report, Losing Sight in Ryedale, which, says Rachel, prompted improvements in services locally and has now been nationally recognised.

Outings and an annual holiday are organised with special helpers brought in to assist the more serious visually disabled.

"We are desperately looking for funding of about £1,000 to take these people on holiday because a number of them do live quite lonely existences - about three quarters of them live on their own."

Despite its modest headquarters, In-Touch offers considerable help, magnifying documents and other reading material for the members, loaning equipment and dictaphones and providing an audio book loan service. It also has a rehabilitation officer who teaches Braille computer skills and mobility.

While only 4pc of people have no sight at all, Rachel points out: "You don't need to loose much sight to be restricted in life by such things as crossing the road."

Many of In-Touch's volunteers undertake a mammoth 400 hours help a year - some as much as 500, she says. "They are really wonderful people."

The group also works with Rural Arts in North Yorkshire, and, working with children from Norton primary school, has recorded memories of some of the older members, such as George Stannard, who related his life story about his career as a farm worker and long distance lorry driver, while Reg Ellis spoke of his life, also in agriculture before moving to a land drainage firm.

People are also taught to play such things as scrabble and get help with a befriending service in association with Ryedale Carers' Support.

It costs around £18,500 a year to run In-Touch and the value of its work has been recognised by being given a continuation grant by the lottery. Members themselves help to raise funds, and collecting boxes in shops augment the income.

Ideally, says Rachel, the group is looking for legacies or donations to enable it to survive because, like many charities, it has seen a drop in its support.

On May 16, Rachel and her helpers are running a collection and a tombola at the Safeway supermarket in Malton jointly with the Royal National Institute for the Blind.

"We are hoping people will support us because we can help to give these people in our area a much-improved quality of life if we have the finance. They are wonderful people, always happy despite their handicap."

Updated: 14:44 Wednesday, April 09, 2003