Work For The Blind

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31736, 20 July 1968, Page 2

Work For The Blind

When a switchboard operator answers a call made in any city in New Zealand, she could well be a blind person trained by the New Zealand Foundation for the Blind in Auckland.

In 10 years, Mr A. McC. Foster, operator instructor on the foundation’s headquarters switchboard in Auckland, has trained more than 30 operators who today hold positions with firms throughout the country, three of them in Christchurch. Mr Foster arrived in New Zealand from Scotland in 1955 with the intention of continuing his hair-dressing business. Within a short time, however, failing sight overtook him, and in 1957 he began attending the workshop classes of the foundation in Parnell. In 1958 he had become a swithcboard operator and was appointed to his present position. Since then he has operated three different switchboards, each time a bigger and more modern model, until today he answers calls on 10 lines for 100 extensions. At the same time as his switchboard duties, Mr Foster carries on the instruction of pupils sent to him from the foundation’s modern college at Homai. Mr Foster, aged 61, says

the satisfaction he gets from helping other blind people to become proficient in switchboard operating—thus enabling them to be independent —is “worth more to me than the first prize in the Golden Kiwi.” One of the present trainees on the switchboard is 18-year-old Carol Wilson, from Foxton. Totally blind, Carol has been educated by the foundation from early years, the last three at Homai College. She moved with the school from Parnell when it became the college at Homai. When her training has been completed Carol will be moving to Wellington where she hopes to be appointed to a position as a switchboard operator. An efficient operator handles calls as quickly as a sighted person, Carol Is not sure whether or not she is looking forward to going to Wellington. While there is satisfaction in knowing an opportunity is opening for her in the world of business, the change is a major step in life for her. Relatives In Wellington are helping arrange accommodation and when she leaves Auckland the foundation’s welfare officer will keep in touch with her. Annual Appeal The foundation's annual, national "Braille Week” appeal will be held next Saturday. Christchurch has been divided into 180 blocks for

the house-to-house collection and there will be about 2000 collectors. This year, although the money collected goes into the foundation’s general fund, the emphasis Is on youth. The theme is: “Will you help a blind child?” The Christchurch branch hopes to collect as much as in previous years —■ between $28,000 and $30,000. “The needs of the blind remain the same, but the costs of all services for them are continually going up,” the district organiser (Mr H. H. Burrows) said yesterday. The photograph shows Mr Foster and Miss Wilson.