When we read that a person with low or no vision is more than twice as likely to be attacked than a sighted person, probably because they cannot identify their attacker, we knew we had to try to help.
“The Disability Rights Commission – Hate Crime Against Disabled People in Scotland Report”
• 57% of blind or visually impaired people have experienced hate crime because of their disability.
• 73% reported being frightened or attacked, experiencing verbal abuse and intimidation.
• 35% were physically attacked.
• 45% did not try to stop the attack, as they were frightened and concerned about repercussions.
• Only 40% of victims report incidents to the Police.
• Respondents described feeling scared, embarrassed, humiliated and stressed by the attacks.
• The majority surveyed felt feeling afraid was something that they had to live with due to their disability.
These statistics prompted us, in 2016, to apply for funding from The Big Lottery’s Investing In Ideas to develop a Personal Safety for the Blind and Visually Impaired course – although it would be 2017 before it began to come to fruition.
We teamed up with Scottish War Blinded, a charity which helps blind veterans, and latterly, the Forth Valley Sensory Centre in Falkirk and in the process, we successfully trained two people up to become the UK’s first blind Personal Safety/self defence instructors.
Our charity founder and course developer, Alan Bell was a finalist in the RNIB’s Vision Pioneer Awards 2017 in the category of “Teacher of the Year” for his work in training blind people to become Personal Safety instructors and teaching people with low or no vision.
One of our blind Personal Safety instructors is David Black and his work with us has received a significant amount of media coverage. David has been featured in local and national newspapers, BBC News, BBC World Service, BBC London, STV’s Live at Five, BBC Radio Four and various blogs for the blind and visually impaired.
In 2018, our course specifically for blind people won the “Pioneering Project” award at The Scottish Charity Awards 2018. This was followed up when we won the “Disability” award the following year at The Charity Awards 2019 and the “Team of the Year” award at the RNIB “See Differently” Awards 2019.
And these courses also played a factor in us being awarded the “Diversity in the Third Sector” award at The Herald & GenAnalytics Diversity Awards 2018 and the “Empowerment Champions” award at The Scottish Diversity Awards 2019.
The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety featured in this BBC Scotland report to highlight the impact our courses have had on people who are registered blind or visually impaired.
We organised a fundraising fashion show with 22 out of the 30 models taking part either registered blind or visually impaired. It was a great day and testament to the commitment and confidence shown by all participants!
As we further developed our course to cover Personal Safety for People with Sensory Impairment, we began to include people who were not only blind or sight impaired but also deaf, hearing impaired and deafblind. This has seen us run courses for not only RNIB and Visibility Scotland but also Deafblind Scotland, The Disability Centre, Deaf Connections and Action on Hearing Scotland.
We also partnered with North Ayrshire’s Health & Social Care Partnership (including NHS Ayrshire & Arran) to provide our Personal Safety for People with Sensory Impairment course to their service users. This saw us win the “Voluntary Sector Partnership Award” at The Scottish Public Service Awards 2020 and these newly developed courses also played a factor in us being awarded The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in 2020 for “empowering vulnerable people and saving lives through bespoke Personal Safety training since 1997”; the “Community Organisation – multi-strand” award at The National Diversity Awards 2020; and the “Diversity in the Third Sector” award at The Herald & GenAnalytics Diversity Awards 2021.
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