As part of World Sight Day, Observatory Beccles joined the Beccles & District Lions and the Mayor of Beccles to experience a Blind Walk. The Mayor, Richard Stubbings, was guided by Beccles Lion Sharon Page. Observatory staff member Jo Birtwhisle was guided by the President of Beccles Lions, Sandy Barr. Everyone found it to be a fascinating day, but it’s hard to understand the obstacles faced in photos. To this end, we’ve made a short video to show the difficulties faced during the walk.
The aim of the Blind Walk is to make the public aware of these difficulties and hopefully reduce the amount of obstacles.
The theme of World Sight Day 2021 was #loveyoureyes – being aware of your own eye health and making sure you have regular eye tests. Did you know that 78% of people in the UK stated that sight is the sense they fear most about losing. Yet 28% of the adult population are not having an eye test every two years. Almost two million people are living with significant sight loss in the UK and this figure is predicted to double to four million by 2050. Over 50% of this sight loss could have been avoided. Eye tests are an important health check and can detect much more than just vision difficulties.