LOCAL charity, The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety, based in the former Barony St John church hall in Ardrossan are jumping for joy this week as it has just been announced that their principal instructor, Alan Bell, has reached the final of the The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB)’s Vision Pioneer Awards 2017.

Last year, Alan developed a Personal Safety course specifically for people with low/no vision and trained up two registered blind people, Michael McAllister and David Black, to help him present the courses.

These have been running everyweek throughout this year in the Barony St John Centre in Ardrossan with Alan and Michael and in the Forth Valley Sensory Centre near Falkirk with Alan and David.

The courses give blind people advice on how to stay safe when out and about as well as how to defend themselves should they be attacked – and this training boosts participants self confidence and self esteem and in many cases changed their lives for the better.

As word of the courses success spread, the UK’s biggest martial arts magazine, Martial Arts Illustrated gave Michael McAllister a “Student of the Year” award and David Black featured on various media programmes such as BBC Radio 4, STV2 and BBC news.

Registered blind Norma Baillie runs PrioritEyes, a company which helps other vision-impaired people to maximise their independence, confidence and safety.

She attended Alan’s weekly classes in Ardrossan and was so impressed with the results that she nominated him for the RNIB Vision Pioneer Awards in the category of “Teacher of the Year”.

Norma commented: “Since completing Alan’s Personal Safety course, I can’t praise it highly enough, both on a personal and a professional level. A lot of my work involves supporting people to get out and about, as this is an aspect of day-to-day living they feel particularly uncomfortable about and I firmly believe the training offered by Alan and The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety not only compliments the input of a Rehab Worker but can change people’s lives. That’s why I had no hesitation in nominating Alan for the RNIB’s Teacher of the Year award.”

Alan added: “It was a great shock to hear that I had made it to the final in the Teacher of the Year category. Even if I don’t win, to think that I am considered to be one of the top three teachers of people with low or no vision in the UK is a great honour.”

The final takes place in London at the Royal College of Nursing on December 12 and we all wish Alan, who is also a columnist for the Herald, the best of luck.