FOR the past year The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety, a charity based in the Barony St. John buildings in Ardrossan, have been developing a personal safety course specifically for the blind and visually impaired and this week saw its launch at venues throughout Scotland.

According to Action for Blind People, there are almost two million visually impaired UK residents living in the UK including approximately 360,000 people registered as blind or partially sighted who have severe and irreversible sight loss.

Frighteningly, predictions indicate that these numbers will increase dramatically and that by 2050 the number of people with sight loss in the UK will double to nearly four million.

Statistics such as these urged Executive Manager and Principal Instructor with The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety (ScotCPS) to apply to The Big Lottery’s Investing In Ideas in 2015 with the intention of developing a personal safety course to keep people with low or no vision safe.

Alan commented: “There is a link between sight loss and reduced wellbeing with over a third of older people with sight loss living with depression. Part of this depression is being afraid to go out and about as people who are visually impaired feel more vulnerable – and it’s not surprising as over half (57%) of people with visual impairment have been attacked because of their disability. So with this in mind, I decided to develop a course to help people with low or no vision stay safe. This week sees the launch of this course.”

The course was showcased at Glasgow Sight Village on Wednesday and eight week sessions are due to be launched in Falkirk at the Forth Valley Sensory Centre and in Ardrossan at the charity’s Barony St. John Centre in Princes Street.

Another of the charity’s major successes was in developing an Instructor course for visually impaired people which has now been ratified by the British Martial Arts and Boxing Association. This has enabled the charity to train two registered blind people up to Instructor level and allow them to present the training to other sensory impaired people throughout the country.

If you are interested in finding out more, readers can contact The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety via their website www.ScotCPS.orgt.uk or their Facebook page www.facebook.com/ScotCPS.