ROYAL VISITS SURREY CHARITY

On Wednesday April 19th, Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Edinburgh, visited Sensory Services by Sight for Surrey, a charity supporting over 8,000 people with sight and hearing loss in Surrey.

HRH was greeted and shown around the offices in Fetcham by Clare Burgess, Chief Executive, and Christine Wilmshurst, Chair of Trustees.

HRH was introduced to various members of staff, volunteers and service users including Tony Greene, Resource Centre Coordinator who explained the benefi ts of coming into the Resource Centre and showed her various pieces of equipment.

The Duchess discussed with staff the hope that on-going developments in Artifi cial Intelligence (AI) could enable advancements in British Sign Language interpretation.

She was then shown specially adapted cooking equipment for people with a vision impairment (VI) and joined a real-time ‘Let’s Talk Tech’ session which shows attendees how to use software that will allow people with a VI to continue using their mobile phone or computer.

The Duchess also met some of the charity’s volunteers and trustees, and creators of a collaborative piece of artwork from the charity’s social groups.

As she departed, she was presented with a goodie bag and a hand woven bird feeder, unveiled a Braille plaque and cut a cake.

Clare Burgess said, “It was a privilege and honour to introduce The Duchess to some of our service users, volunteers and staff and highlight the crucial work we do supporting people who are blind, vision impaired, deaf, hard of hearing and deafblind.”