A visually-impaired Nottingham woman now has a full time job
creating products in audio and Braille formats thanks to a
Euro-funded community project.
Supported by and based at the Nottinghamshire Royal Society for
the Blind (NRSB),
Dot the Dots is part-funded by £10,000 from the European
Social Fund (ESF) and Skills Funding Agency. The project,
which makes a minimal profit, is run by a team of visually-impaired
people, transcribing anything from birthday cards to tourism
leaflets into audio or Braille formats as well as running training
courses.
Dot the Dots offer work placements to train visually impaired
people in new skills to improve their confidence and job prospects,
including setting up their own social enterprise.
Former Nottingham Trent business student, Donna Keane, 24 from
Sneinton joined the project on a work placement in January which
proved so successful, she was taken on full-time.
Dot the Dots senior transcription officer, Vivienne Wilkes-Hood,
describes how Donna's confidence has grown since joining the
project:
"Donna was as a quiet as a mouse when she first joined.
However, she's now a completely different person. Her
confidence has slowly grown over the last few months as she started
getting stuck into the different aspects of the business and was
putting in more and more hours. Recently Donna helped me do a
presentation about our service in front of 300 people."
With her new-found confidence, Donna applied for several jobs
during her placement and was reluctantly due to leave after she got
a job offer. However, her colleagues felt she was too strong
a member of the team to lose as they really valued her business and
financial skills. With the amount of work they had on, and
more on the way, they were able to offer her a full-time post,
which she snapped up. Donna describes her delight in getting
the job:
"When I got the job offer from another organisation I really
didn't want to leave as it's been such a great experience here,
particularly working with the rest of the team. Its given me
so much more confidence, I could never have imagined that I would
be presenting in front of hundreds of people and training others."
Donna's financial skills have recently helped the project expand
its service, offering training for businesses to highlight the
needs of visually impaired people and dispel some of the myths.
Under the Disability Discrimination Act, it's a legal requirement
for organisations to produce material in an accessible format for
visually impaired people on request.
Leading Dot the Dots, Vivienne has also been working at the
project since January. She said:
"We offer a unique service to Nottingham and the wider region as
there are not many places in the country which offer a similar type
of service. The ESF community grant has been a real boost to our
success.
"Our clients know they are getting the best in terms of quality
and costs as our products have been produced for those who are
visually impaired by visually impaired people. We can spot
any silly errors or dispel any assumptions that people make."
Dot the Dots clients include NHS services, local authorities and
many Nottingham businesses. One of their more unusual orders
was placed by a man who walked into their offices, just off
Alfreton Road, to ask if they could produce a Christmas card in
Braille - and it was only March!
The team also included Alan Hart, 23 from Arnold who is
partially sighted and works as the team's IT support. Kay
Dear, 24 from Radford has been visually impaired from birth and is
the team's main proof reader and also teaches Braille.