About Us

About Us

Sight Concern Worcestershire provides support and information to people throughout the county who experience some level of significant sight loss.

In this section of the website you will find some information about the charity in general.

For more information on the services we provide, please see the How We Can Help menu from the home page.

Our History

Sight Concern Worcestershire is the working name of Worcestershire Association for the Blind. The name was changed in October 2009 to show a more modern approach to the work that we do and to stop alienation of the very people we want to support. The word ‘blind’, although having a strong impact can be rather frightening and somewhat misleading as, in fact very few visually impaired people are completely blind. There are many people who have told us they did not think they ‘qualified’ for our services as they were not registered as blind, only partially sighted or sight impaired.

Worcestershire Association for the Blind officially registered as a charity number 202144 in 1930. , but it evolved from the Worcestershire Blind Visiting Service which was formed in 1880.This earlier society raised its income from churches in the Diocese and the committee was almost entirely formed of clergymen. After the First World War the name was changed to Worcestershire Association for the Blind and we played our part in helping to rehabilitate men who had lost their sight through exposure to gas.

The charity evolved from 1930 to 1986 by forming branch committees who visited people, organised social activities and provided gifts and grants for blind people in their local area.

In 1986 the ‘new look’ Association was formed. The first premises were bought; a first-floor flat in Wylds Lane, Worcester. In 1987 we invited some younger visually impaired people into this Centre for two half days per week - one for skills training and one for social events. In 1988 funding was obtained for a Resource Centre Manager -; our first and only employee.

The next 14 years saw an ever increasing demand for services; there were over 70 people coming into the Centre on a regular basis for such activities as Braille, word processing, typing, crafts and woodwork.

In 1996 the Home Visiting Scheme (now known as Community Support) was set up to provide much needed support and friendship to people who could not come to the Centre. This has more than proved its worth, with both numbers of people being visited and volunteers increasing all the time.

After some years it became clear that the first floor flat was wholly inadequate and fundraising took place in order to buy something bigger. This came to fruition in 2001 with the opening of The Bradbury Centre, named after a trust based in Hong Kong, which provided the money to buy the old Post Office sorting office in Sansome Walk, which is still home to the charity today.

Today we have over 150 regular weekly visitors to the centre and continue to support many more in their own communities or on an ‘ad hoc’ basis. This website shows in detail the different ways in which we support people.

Sight Concern continues to develop services that are responsive the needs of people with sight loss and based on the requests we receive.  The future plans for the organisation include expansion of our community based services, including more social and education activities based in peoples local areas, and more confidence building and skills training at the Bradbury Centre.