Sight Scotland is delighted to announce the launch of its new Community Activity Groups. This new service will aim to reach and engage with more people affected by sight loss in the community, whilst providing a social platform to help combat isolation and loneliness.
Sight Scotland’s new Community Activity team, which is headed up by Laura Steven in the East and Michael Deadman in the West, recently held an information session for this new service where it invited people affected by sight loss to come along and meet the new team and find out more about what will be on offer. Laura and Michael were especially keen to discuss with clients’ what kinds of groups and activities they want and need. The charity will be running its first Community Activity Group at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh on 27 February 2023.
Colin Hilditch, Head of Community Services at Sight Scotland, explains “We are delighted to launch our new Activity Groups service. These groups will provide a social platform where members can come along and hopefully enjoy themselves and meet new friends. People with visual impairment can lose their confidence, self-esteem and ability to do many day-to-day activities. This can often result in isolation and loneliness. The launch of this new service gives us another way to engage with and help more people. It has huge potential to make a big difference to people’s lives.”
Laura Steven, activity coordinator for the Edinburgh area, comments: “Our new activity groups will provide activities for members to explore interests, develop new skills and meet new friends, in a safe and welcoming environment. Our recent information session was a great success, and it reaffirmed that this is a service that our clients really want and will benefit from. It also gave us the opportunity to interact with the people who will be using this service, finding out how they would like the groups to run and what activities they would like.”
Michael Deadman adds: “We want the Activity Groups to build community and boost confidence. We are hoping to put on a wide variety of groups this year including social groups, book groups and arts and crafts, amongst others. We see the activity groups as a great way of engaging with more people in the community in a positive and rewarding manner.”
The new Activity Groups will be part of Sight Scotland’s Family Wellbeing Service, which has a wealth of knowledge to help support and empower anyone affected by sight loss regain or maintain their independence. The support can either be face to face, over the phone or online.
The new Sight Scotland Community Activity team are hosting a free social gathering at The Gardener’s Cottage in the Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, on 27 February 2023 from 11am -12pm. This social event is for people with sight loss to come together in a supportive and safe environment to meet new and other visually impaired people in their community.
For more information visit: https://sightscotland.org.uk/ or call our helpline on 0800 024 8973.