VICTA’s Lynley Hood, an award-winning non-fiction writer. Credit: Eye Health Aotearoa

Restricted by our recent lockdowns, the Visual Impairment Charitable Trust Aotearoa (VICTA) came up with a new creative way to support the low vision community by launching its own radio show. The show, Sight Unseen Aotearoa, started in cooperation with Otago Access Radio (OAR 105.4FM) in Dunedin, said VICTA trustee Dr Lynley Hood, but soon reached a nationwide and even international audience. “The programme was intended to run for four weeks but, to our astonishment, Sight Unseen Aotearoa attracted nationwide interest.”

From the second episode on, the weekly show was replayed on local stations in Christchurch, Palmerston North, Hamilton and the Kapiti Coast and was available in podcast format worldwide. “Using the marvels of modern technology to interview informed and entertaining people with an interest in visual impairment from New Zealand and around the world, we manged to adapt to the expectations of our enlarged audience,” she said. “Thanks to a generous grant from the Ministry of Social Development’s Community Awareness and Preparedness Grant Fund, our weekly episodes continued through 2020 and on into early 2021 and received excellent feedback from local, national, and international listeners.”

VICTA podcast

Aside from connecting and educating via radio, Dunedin-based charity VICTA’s focus is to support people who are experiencing vision loss and to help them make the most of the vision they’ve got left, said Dr Hood. “I often get calls from people who have been diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease who feel shocked, anxious and alone. Practical concerns about money, jobs and coping with everyday life are common and you find yourself wondering what’s next and how to prepare. We chat about their immediate needs and I pass on contact details to a support person in their area.”

VICTA was established in 2013 to address the unmet needs of the growing number of New Zealanders with irreversible vision loss. It was founded with support from the late Associate Professor Gordon Sanderson, while Dame Catherine Tizard, the former Auckland mayor and New Zealand's first female Governor General, is its patron.

For more information, see www.visualimpairment.org.nz/the-trust. To listen to episodes of Sight Unseen Aotearoa, visit https://tunein.com/podcasts/Science-Podcasts/Sight-Unseen-Aotearoa-p1324647/?topicId=158014639