Community support

07 February 25

Inclusivity in the community

By RW Bro Terry McCallum

There are so many organisations that support people with disabilities. Here’s a brief mention of just a few.

Radio 2RPH in Sydney is a part of the national RPH Network (Reading for the Print Handicapper). It is run by volunteers who read newspapers, stories and articles for those who for whatever reason cannot manage the printed word.

The John Maclean Foundation, founded and run by John Maclean – himself becoming wheelchair bound following a traffic accident. The foundation raises funds to provide wheelchairs for children and young people who would not otherwise have access to one.

Blind Speed – headed by Ben Felten who lost his sight through retinitis pigmentosa. Having represented Australia in adaptive rowing and blind cricket, he went on to set the world blindfolded land speed record on a motorbike (266kph – Blind). He is currently working on repeating the exercise in a car.

Ben’s ‘In Sight of Dreams’ organisation arranges ‘track days’, where people with vision impairment get the chance to drive a car around a racetrack – and it’s not slow! It’s an opportunity for an adrenalin rush that few (if any) vision impaired people will have ever imagined they will experience. A HUGELY popular event for all who have the nerve to give it a go.

Dining in the Dark: Let’s turn the tables; Ben also runs a fundraising event where sighted people pay for a nice meal in a fancy venue. However during the meal they have to wear a blindfold, so they can ‘enjoy’ the experience of eating a meal without being able to see it.

I’ve done it. Whilst feeling for the cutlery it’s not unusual to put your hand in the gravy. Have you got your knife sharp side down? And what was it that you just stuck your fork into? I was the photographer for one of the events, and took off my blindfold just in time to see a lady opposite me shove the pointy end of a small carrot up her nose.

The night is an absolute hoot, and great for broadening one’s appreciation and thinking

Schools: Following a fundraiser by my own lodge a few years back, RW Bro Bruce Quirk PAGM and I visited a school in Glenmore Park run by the NSW Institute for Deaf and Blind Children to present their cheque. The place was a tactile paradise. Small groups of children would sit in a discussion circle, each kid holding one end of a string that was being held by the teacher. Whichever kid wanted to talk tugged on their string.

A handrail around the play area had different surfaces that changed every 10 metres; from smooth and glossy to fabric to paint to leather to plastic to paint with sand in it and so on, so the kids always knew where they were. And a highlight for them was ‘Mud Day’; a fully clothed mud bath creating absolute bedlam in the play area. The hosing down was as much fun as the mud.

Bruce and I learned so much on that day, and I shall never forget the marvellous and inspiring things we saw