Eliminating the visual reliance

Annually, the Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand (Association) conducts its Wellington Seminar. The highlight of this year’s two-day event was the informational function, held in the Banquet Hall, Parliament on Tuesday 17 July. Hosted by the Minister for Disability Issues Hon Ruth Dyson, attendees included Members of Parliament, Government officials, and leaders from the disability sector and community organisations.

“Blindness-specific advocacy is our core business, and through our Wellington Seminar, we consolidate and draw attention to issues topical to New Zealand’s blind community”, explained the Association’s National President Mrs Carolyn Weston.

During this year’s campaign, the Association focussed upon seven key issues, each of which signals to Government and others, the extent to which barriers exist for blind people. Issues lobbied this year include: access to government-produced information, independent and accessible voting in government and local body elections, improved provision of blindness-specific services, accessible public transport, the judicial system, telecommunications and audio description.

When talking about audio description, Mrs Weston was most enthusiastic, stating “during our two-day campaign, we had preliminary discussions with TVNZ and from these are encouraged to learn that options for introducing audio description are currently being explored.”

Audio Description (AD) is as unique for blind people as captioning is for the deaf and hearing impaired. Generally speaking, approximately 96% of people with sight problems watch TV but seventy per cent of them have difficulties following programmes because of their sight loss. AD is an additional narration that fits between dialogue that describes what is happening on screen, including body language, facial expression, costume, scenery and action sequences.


Mrs Weston then went on to say “sighted people often take for granted the ease at which they can read print information such as household bills, doctor’s appointments and other sundry documentation crucial to our personal circumstances. So much of what we encounter in our every-day life is visual, and yet for those of us who are blind, we are continually marginalised. We either miss out entirely, or we become reliant upon sighted family or friends to enlighten us.”


Achievements gained by the Association on behalf of New Zealand’s blind and vision impaired population were acknowledged by the Minister for Disability Hon Ruth Dyson during her presentation.


Mrs Weston concluded saying “Tuesday’s function facilitated an opportunity for the Association to give more exposure to key issues faced by the blind community and in turn, we most appreciative of the continued support we receive from Hon Ruth Dyson.”