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Northern Ireland groups share in £769,369 grants boost from Awards for All

Guide Dogs NI will use a sensory tunnel to help sighted people understand the challenges people with sight loss face every day, thanks to a grant from Big Lottery Fund. 

Guide Dogs NI has received a £9,990 grant from Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All programme. They are using the money to help them convert an old exhibition bus into a mobile sensory tunnel that will allow sighted people to better understand challenges faced by people who are blind and partially sighted. It is part of a Big Lottery Fund grants roll out yesterday of £769,369 to 91 groups across Northern Ireland. Download a full list of awards.

Torie Tennant, from Ballymena (23) is a fundraiser, campaigner, and volunteer for Guide Dogs NI. Torie has been blind since birth and up until a couple of years ago, she was entirely reliant on her family and friends, which she found hugely frustrating. She was paired with her guide dog Ushi on her 20th birthday and has gone from strength to strength in gaining independence, working to raise awareness and change things for the better for blind people.

Torie said many of the problems that blind people face every day could be helped if people understood blindness better; especially those with the power to make changes.

“Once, I was going into a venue and the owner wouldn’t allow me to take my guide dog Ushi with me, because they didn’t understand. You feel crushed when that happens. When there are obstacles on footpaths and walkways it’s difficult, even with a guide dog. If business owners, public service providers and people in government understood what we face, our lives could be made so much easier.” 

The mobile sensory tunnel project will be in operation across Northern Ireland from next year. People will be blindfolded and will walk through a dark tunnel, smelling mown grass, hearing traffic and countryside noises, feeling surfaces that simulate grass, tarmac and paving, and walls of fencing and brick. It will be a brief but powerful insight into what it’s like to live with sight loss. It will give people a first-hand understanding of their heightened need to use all their senses, and of the everyday challenges blind people face. 

Click here for full press release

 

Channel website: https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/

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