One section of the blind community that is often not heard is that of young people. On this occasion, I’m referring to blind and low vision people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. These are young adults, old enough to have left school, ready to take on the world, yet still at that age where it isn’t exactly cool to be going to meetings of an organisation like our Association. I can easily recall my attitude at eighteen years of age. I certainly had no time for meetings and commitments.

One section of the blind community that is often not heard is that of young people. On this occasion, I’m referring to blind and low vision people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. These are young adults, old enough to have left school, ready to take on the world, yet still at that age where it isn’t exactly cool to be going to meetings of an organisation like our Association. I can easily recall my attitude at eighteen years of age. I certainly had no time for meetings and commitments.

From time to time we have talked about a youth branch, and that may happen at some stage if enough young people want to get behind a concept like that. But in the meantime we want to give blind youth an opportunity to have their say on issues important to them, and I’m pleased to announce that our Board decided recently to host a one-day forum for blind and low vision youth.

We should have a formal announcement out by the end of May and we plan to run it in August some time. As already stated, the target age group will be eighteen to twenty-five. Once announced, we will publicise this as widely as we can and we will be inviting blind and low vision people in this age group from all over New Zealand to contact us with some sort of indication as to why they would like to attend this forum. Our plan is to select up to sixteen people and bring them together for one day at our expense.

We hope the young people who attend will feel encouraged to speak openly about the things that most concern them about their situation as a blind or low vision person. We will provide a facilitator so even the ones who are the most shy will speak up, but apart from that, the older folks will stay away and not influence the process. No strings; no obligations.

I’m sure we all remember what life was like when we were young but I don’t think any of us who are much older than this age group can really appreciate life for people in this age group today. Young people today have to deal with a vastly different world. On the one hand, they face challenges we never had to face when we were young, but on the other hand there are new opportunities now which we could only have dreamed of.

The Association has always cared a lot about the next generation. I can remember older blind adults who helped and encouraged us when we were growing up, and it was only when I became an adult that I realised they were Association members. Now we are older, we have the same commitment to the next generation. We are committed to ensuring that what comes out of this forum will influence our programme of advocacy over the next few years. And if it is really successful, I hope we’ll be planning the next one before too long.