Community and Schools

Community

Here are some ways that you could help with our mission:

• We can provide speakers for your event or meeting. We can talk about the challenges faced by visually impaired people, and we can give advice on making your organisation and/or your event more accessible.
• Would you like to do something for us or our clients?
• You could hold an event to fundraise for us.
• Walford Hall is available to rent. Some example activities that Walford Hall has hosted:
  • Zumba
  • MP surgeries for Reading East MP, Matt Rodda
  • Quizzes
  • Church group prayer meetings.

Schools

Sight loss can be particularly hard to understand for Children, especially when a family member receives a sight loss diagnosis.

We can provide speakers for assemblies and/or class discussions. We also welcome groups to come and visit us in Walford Hall.

As an example, we can help explain how to adjust language to assist visually impaired people:

• INTRODUCE YOURSELF Say ‘Hello it’s Jane‘, not just ‘Hello’.
• DON’T WORRY about using sight-centred language. Many people with sight loss will say they are pleased to ‘see’ you or need to ‘look’ for something.
• ASK before trying to assist. Let the person tell you what would be helpful.

You could hold an event to fundraise for us.

Examples of how we can support each other:

Reading College

We have an ongoing partnership with Reading College. Their beautician students attend our clubs and provide manicures to our members to help earn credits towards their qualifications.

We have also offered placements to Reading College attendees via their Work Experience Team when a suitable role has been available.

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL)

We have worked closely with MERL on a number of projects over the last few years. They have attended our clubs and run some activities for us. They have hosted our members for a day, providing a talk, tactile experience of objects and a museum tour. They are about to deliver a few virtual activities for our members on our Hall at Home program and we also have the community case on site booked for December 2021 where we will display some of our craft work and some information about ourselves.

Oxford Road Community School came and sang Christmas Carols and played some party games with our Service Users.

Reading Museum have run a project with us where we visited the museum, explored some objects and then worked with an artist to produce some pieces in clay.