Visually impaired happy to receive guide dogs
PAULSHOF – South African Guide-Dogs Association for the Blind recently held their August graduation ceremony rewarding clients with guide dogs.
It was an overwhelming and emotional graduation ceremony at Paulshof-based South Africa Guide-Dogs Association for the Blind on 17 August.
Clients were rewarded with their required assistance dog at the event, puppy raisers were honoured for raising the assistance dogs, while sponsors of the organisation were also honoured.
The organisation provides special training to dogs for a period two years. The guide dogs are later released to guide a person living with certain challenges. There are three types of assistance dogs – a service dog which assists people living with physical disability; a guide dog that assists a person with a visual impairment and an autism support dog trained to assist children who suffer from autism spectrum disorder.
Honoured with a guide dog was Rohan Crafford, who received a yellow female Labrador called Dixi. He expressed his gratitude to the Guide-Dogs Association, “I would like to thank everyone at Guide-Dogs Association on behalf of the entire class of August 2019. You guys are very special.”
Other clients who received guide dogs included: Tino Naidu from Centurion who received Buddy, a male black Labrador; Lindy Keyser from Potchefstroom who received Chelsy, a yellow female Labrador and Eric Mack from Margate who received Cooper, a yellow male Labrador.
Carole Cross from Durban North, KwaZulu-Natal, received service dog Shiloh, a yellow female Labrador. As her training was done in KZN, Cross did not attend the ceremony, however, their graduation was shared with everyone.
Part of the SA Guide-Dogs Association is the orientation and mobility department which provides training to visually impaired individuals with an alternative to a guide dog which is called ‘long cane’, a helpful mobility aid that can be an extension assisting one with a sense of touch. Likho Mangqumakazi is among the individuals who have benefited from the programme and now lives life to the fullest as a result of the independence gained from using a long cane and the skill of daily living techniques taught to him.
Practitioner and supervisor of orientation and mobility Queen Molefe briefly explained how they provide assistance to visually impaired individuals, “We work with different cases, it’s not only about training mobility, it’s also encouraging and uplifting one to accept the situation after the loss of a sight.
“Our role is to empower, motivate and then when we see the person has direction, we start the training even when during the training it’s not easy – there are ups and downs but the main goal is to leave them independent.”
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