A CITY school for the blind and partially sighted has called on the people of Worcester to help provide their students with the resources to learn life skills.
New College Worcester on Whittington Road currently runs an Independent Living Skills course, which teaches students cookery, health care and first aid.
Anne Priestley, fund-raising manager, said they use Sainsbury’s Active Kids vouchers to purchase the equipment needed to carry out the lessons.
But she said they were still about 10,000 vouchers short of what they hoped to receive when the scheme was launched in January.
“We teach our children how to make a meal, how to wash up and how to iron as all of these skills can be quite a challenge when you are blind and partially sighted,” he said.
“We try and teach these skills as much as we can as we want them to be independent, but of course that needs equipment and that’s where Sainsbury’s scheme has helped.”
Mrs Priestley said they are looking to purchase a variety of items for the kitchen – ranging from a microwave oven to a hand mixer, which is worth about 1,300 vouchers.
The school has collected more than 8,500 vouchers from parents and former pupils, while Kevin Trapp, primary manager from Cargill Meets Europe, added 478 the school’s collection last week. But Mrs Priestley told the Observer they are still urging people in Worcester to send them in as they aim to provide their pupils with the best equipment available.
“We have a lovely group of people in Worcester who send them in ominously in envelopes which is fantastic,” she added.
“But what I would say to people is that ‘if you still have some in your purse and you have got nobody to give them to, then can you give them to us as we would love to have them?’”
