[Community-service] personal readers and mail

[Ashley Bramlett]

Hi Peter and all,

To respond to your question and suggestion on finding readers, I’ll say this under this subject line and then leave it as I think the consensus of the group writing in is that it’s a personal matter yet a big problem.

You said,

”    If we can link blind individuals to mentors we should be able to create 
a service similar to NFb Link to assist blind individuals in locating 
readers and drivers. As mentioned previously these can include individuals 
and organizations that provide these services throughout the country. It's 
then up to the blind individual to contact the listed providers in their 
area for assistance. If this is such a big issue perhaps it needs more 
attention than we believe it does.”

Peter, sorry, not buying it. mentoring people  is far, far easier than hiring a reader to read personal mail. Mentoring requires a smaller committment and does not involve people seeing private information. Matching mentors to mentees is so much easier as you need common interests and a willingness to help. Reading, on the other hand, requires several things. they include skill to read clearly, the trust to keep things confidential, ability to be committed and be on time to work with the blind person, and dependability; not to mention the reader has to have their own transportation to meet you at home.

I really fail to see the similarity to the mentor program and hiring a reader or having a committed volunteer reader.


I have three suggestions.
1. Go to  places where many people gather who like reading and ask around. this includes public libraries, book signings, and book fairs.
2. Ask other disabilty advocacy groups to help if their around such as a center for independent living.
3. If you cannot do in person, scan the mail and have a friend see  on the pc, and read it via phone.

hth,
Ashley
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