Welcome to the second edition of Parents News! Well after a busy four months as the Victorian Advocacy and Information Officer, I think I've finally settled in.

This edition of Parent News has a follow up on the Southern Cross Games from the perspective of a coach as well as a gold medallist - not of one but four sports! Read her story and learn where her inspiration comes from.

Also find enclosed a very interesting article which poses the question: If a person who is blind regained their sight, would they be able to recognise objects they have previously touched? This thought provoking piece answers this question (and perhaps raises many more) with two case studies.

As usual, our "What's On" section is full of activities from training seminars, adaptive technology expos and a State of Origin Junior Development Day provided by the NRL and City of Melbourne, plus much more.

As a nice cool drink is out of the question due to our cold Melbourne weather, a hot chocolate may be more fitting to cosy up with this quarter's magazine.

Happy reading!

Jessica Zammit
Editor

In this edition of Parent News, we speak with Amy Ni, Treasurer of Young Blind Citizens Victoria (YBCV) about the happenings of the branch in the last few months and reveal a few facts about the Treasurer herself.

The Southern Cross Games has been the other area for YBCV. We donated just under $1000 to the team, with each student receiving about $70 which was used either to contribute to their fees or as extra money for them to spend. It made it a little bit easier for the students and their families. We also received a photo of the team from the Burwood Vision Australia school with a Brailled certificate saying thank you.

The other event we are looking at holding is a social event prior to the AGM, which is tentatively being planned for late July or early August. If anyone is interested, they can contact us by phone or email.

I'm also helping to create a low cost resource guide which details different websites that provide low cost or no cost software available for people with disabilities which should be available online through the DCO website in the coming months. Look out for the URL in the next Parents' news.

If you would like further information regarding the YBCV AGM, or social event planned please contact Amy at ybcv@bca.org.au or (03) 8802 9688 or 0411 480 595. If you are interested in the adaptive technology expos, you can contact Amy for more information at amyni82@optusnet.com.au

The Youth Affairs Council of Victoria (YACVic), in collaboration with Youthlaw and the Disability Discrimination Legal Service, has received funding from the Department of Human Services to establish the Youth and Disability Advocacy Service (YDAS).

YDAS is a new service aimed at encouraging young people with disabilities to speak out on issues that concern them, as well as take a more proactive approach in the community. Young people with disabilities aged between 12 and 25 are encouraged to get involved in making decisions about the direction and priorities of the service and to take part in advocacy to improve the lives of young people with disabilities.

(Adapted from The Bulletin, No 5, Friday 21st April 2006)

Do your students or children need a little more motivation to read?

The Victorian Premier's Reading Challenge is for students from Prep to Year 9, who are being challenged to read a certain number of books by August 30, 2006. If they meet the challenge, they receive an award certificate from the Premier in Term IV. Last year more than 130,000 children read more than one million books!

There are lists of books for children at four different levels – Prep to Year 2, Years 3 to 4, Years 5 and 6 and Years 7 to 9. Children must read a certain number of books from these lists, and can read some others.

Schools register online to be a part of the challenge and appoint a 'School Reading Challenge Coordinator'. These coordinators register children, verify the books they complete and register these on the challenge system.

The Southern Cross Games, just like the Commonwealth Games, have come and gone, leaving us sports-satisfied. But perhaps the most satisfied are the gold medal winners and the coach of the Vision Australia team, Charlie Roberts, who have brought home the rewards. Jessica speaks with Charlie about the Games.

I think they were very successful, with the Vision Australia team bringing home 40 medals (11 Gold, 11 Silver and 18 Bronze medals) which was fantastic. There were also plenty of activities for everyone such as the welcoming/opening ceremony on the first night, the option for tenpin bowling or rock-climbing for a social afternoon, Goalball or a social soccer match, a disco on the Friday night, as well as the competitions during the day and medal presentations after dinner. Another social evening involved each team putting on an act for a concert. A few of the (Vision Australia) team performed "Land Down under", with two on the guitars and the rest singing. It was quite good!

Well, one of the star performers was Chris Hopper who broke the 100m record in 12.82 seconds and took home a gold medal. But all of them performed remarkably well in everything they went in and pulled amazing results which even surprised themselves. It was a very exciting time.

A lot of our students were keen on the Goalball competition (the Vision Australian team won a Bronze medal) and looked forward to that (Goalball match) the entire time. Some individuals who were strong in swimming and likewise with athletics favoured those sports.

Actually, it wasn't too intense, it was a friendly Games with joking rivalries!

A group of 11 of us went to the northshore of Auckland to have a look around and then headed down south to Rotarua, which is a thermal activity area, where there is a lot for the senses. The students loved it because they could feel the heat of the hot springs, hear the bubbling mud pools, feel the steam in their face and smell the sulphur! We also went to a traditional Maori concert and Hungi dinner, where the villagers heat up the ground with rocks and they cover all the food, such as a selection of meats, fish, potato and sweet potato, with dirt. The kids really enjoyed it and they weren't really too hesitant to eat!

Maritah Suki is a 16 year old student who is part of the Transition class at Vision Australia College in Burwood. In addition, Maritah was a gold medallist of not one but four sports in the 2006 Southern Cross Games. With Gold in the 25m Freestyle and 200m Athletics, Silver in long jump and a Bronze medal in shotput under her belt from these games alone, Jessica talks with Maritah about her success.

I mostly enjoyed socialising with all the different teams and getting to meet people from other states and countries. There were lots of teams from all over NZ and Australia and there was a Samoan team. In total there were 149 students competing which was a pretty big competition. I made a few friends from other teams and my friends from school have stayed in contact with some of them.

I was very excited when I won. The medals were given by a teacher from the Auckland team. The only thing that I didn't like was that they didn't pronounce my name properly - I found that really annoying!

I would have to say it would be the 200m Athletics race, which went fairly smoothly. But I also really enjoyed the long jump.

Well, I started training when I found out I was going (to the Games) and Charlie (Roberts) gave me the equipment I needed to use. I had to do a lot of training for the sports that I was involved in. I started training in November last year and trained once or twice a week. I had to do a lot of swimming and running and a lot of shotput and discus.

I chose to do rock-climbing and there was also tenpin bowling. I struggled when I first started because it was a little slippery and a little bit scary but then I was okay. Once the games were finished, I got to spend time with my family there (in New Zealand) and I was telling them about the Games and they had a big party for me.

They were.

Well, I'm 16 so that was my last Southern Cross games. I didn't go to the one in Sydney but when they had it in Melbourne, when I was 12, I was pretty much involved in everything. I think I won Gold in Backstroke but I can't remember the rest. It was such a long time ago.

I would recommend the games for anyone who would be interested because they can go and have lots of fun, just like me.

I like to play soccer in my back garden, which I really love. I'm looking into playing in my local area as part of a team.

Transition is, I guess, equal to Year 11. Some of the things we do are read things on tape, do lots of comprehension, work ed, music, swimming, community access and work placement at 201 (Vision Australia College at 201 High Street, Prahran), which is really interesting actually. Some of things we have worked on are baby gates for kindergartens and things like that.

(Source: The Bulletin, No 5, Friday 21st April 2006)

The Statewide Vision Resource Centre website has a summary of camps and recreation options for students with vision impairments. It includes a wide variety of activities with contact details including:

• Arts Access
• Australian Paralympic Committee
• Braille Music Camp
• Blind Sports Victoria
• Driving Camp
• Great Victorian Bike Ride
• Guide Dogs Victoria
• Mount Baw Baw 'Do It Yourself Camp'
• New Vision Camp
• Ormond Hall Concert
• SCORE Camp
• Space Camp (SCIVIS)
• Southern Cross Games
• SVRC Camps and Activities Program
• Vision Australia

(Adapted from Baltimore Sun, April 14, 2006, by Frank D. Roylance)

Not long ago, James Gashel was on Capitol Hill, waiting for a meeting to start, when he realized that he needed some numbers from a chart he was carrying. That was a problem. Gashel is blind, and so was his companion. And the chart was not in Braille. Gashel was reaching for his cell phone to call someone at his office to retrieve the numbers, when his colleague stopped him. "Why don't you try the reader?" he asked. Of course.

Gashel, an executive at the National Federation for the Blind in Baltimore, was carrying the world's first hand-held reading machine for the blind - just developed by NFB in collaboration with Kurzweil Technologies Inc. of Wellesley, Mass.

Combining a 5-megapixel digital camera with a personal digital assistant, or PDA, the 13-ounce Kurzweil-NFB Reader converts digital images of text into synthesized speech.

Gashel pulled out his reader, snapped a picture of the chart, "and within a minute I had the numbers I wanted," he said. And he didn't have to bother anyone else to get them.

Now in final field tests before its release for sale by Kurzweil this summer, the device was officially unveiled last week at ceremonies at NFB headquarters in South Baltimore.

Thanks to the new reader, Gashel and 75 other blind product testers are sorting through their own mail, reading restaurant menus, identifying packages in the freezer by the labels and discovering many other tasks they can now do without assistance. "It's liberating", Gashel said. "You start to think about your capabilities differently."

The Kurzweil-NFB Reader, which is expected to cost less than $3,000, marries a small, 5-megapixel Canon camera to an ASUS A730 PDA. They are wired together and held by a vinyl case about 6 inches by 3 inches by 2 1/2 inches. It's all operated with just nine buttons, with voice prompts from a small speaker or through earphones.

Holding the device about 16 inches above a sheet of paper lying on a table, Gashel lines up the shot. He is guided by a sort of audio viewfinder: "Right, bottom edges are visible ... two degrees counterclockwise relative to page." Gashel pushes a button and the shutter clicks. A few seconds later, the device is reading the release aloud, flawlessly.

Tests on a business card and an ATM receipt are rougher. The device misses some lines of type, and mistakes some characters for others. But it does better on a second try, "learning" as it goes along.

Had it been his own ATM slip, Gashel said, "I would have known what I withdrew, and I'd know most of the information, even if it didn't hit it right." "Many times, he said, "you're not going for perfect; you're going for 'What is this?'"

Jim McCarthy, 39, director of governmental affairs at the federation, has also been testing one of the readers. A new office arrangement has left him without a nearby assistant, so something as simple as sorting through papers on his desk becomes an issue.

"I'm probably 25 feet from the closest person," he said. It's not a big deal to walk around the corner and ask someone to identify a piece of paper, "but it seems like a waste of time."

The reader "allows people to sort pertinent documents in a way a lot of us aren't accustomed to. That is pretty liberating," he said.

Lou Ann Blake, 46, a visually impaired research specialist at the federation, has also been a test-driver. "I read the cooking directions on a bag of pasta," she said. "It was plastic and I kinda had to flatten it out. But it did quite well."

"Some of the pronunciations it doesn't get quite right - legal terms, Latin terms," she said. But "it's amazingly easy to use. I have a harder time using the copy machine here sometimes."

But the key advance is the new device's portability, said John Pare, 47, director of sponsored technical programs at the NFB, who started to lose his sight at 35. "No matter where you are, you're constantly being handed printed material," he said. "It's the way the world works. In restaurants, the airport, hotels, at a conference."

The Kurzweil reader enables the blind to grab an image quickly, anywhere - even in the dark - and "read" it themselves instead of relying on friends or strangers to read the documents aloud.

"It's been very gratifying," Kurzweil said. "When we started this project about four years ago, we weren't ... entirely sure to what extent we could compensate for distortion in the images that would occur using a hand-held camera."

Where a scanner provides a flat, uniform image and perfect lighting, the hand-held digital camera would tilt and rotate relative to the page - then the user would move and the lighting would be uneven. Worse, the pages of an open book are curved, with portions at different distances from the camera.

"So we developed image enhancing software that takes this image and modifies it to get rid of all those distortions," Kurzweil said. "And we had to fit all this software [along with the character recognition program] into this little computer." But it worked. "We have 75 in the field, and hundreds very soon," he said. "And the feedback from blind users is that it's having tremendous success."

If it does well, the federation could eventually profit. Gashel said the NFB owns 40 percent of the rights to the technology. In the meantime, the software will continue to be improved so that the device can read more varied and complex material.

Kurzweil also predicts a time when a blind person will be able to enter a room, snap a picture, and have the reader identify the types and locations of lamps, tables, people and other items in the room.

Also, devices "will continue to get smaller over time," he said.

Gashel expects the gadget will be crammed into a cell phone some day. But Kurzweil is thinking even smaller.

"In five to seven years, the camera will pin on your lapel and take pictures as you walk around," describing the scene as you go, he said.

NFB chef and teacher Marie A. Cobb, 59, of Catonsville, who is visually impaired, has been using the reader since January. She has her own hopes.

"What I'm looking for is the day when I can take it into a mall and have it tell me the name of the stores, and the locations on those big directories. I would love that," she said.

Now in its second year, The Other Film Festival will again screen new cinema by, with and about people with a disability at the Age Theatre at Melbourne Museum. Kicking off with a spectacular Opening Night on Friday 25 and running through to Sunday 27 of August, The Other Film Festival supports and encourages excellence in filmmaking, accessible cinema and the passionate exchange of ideas.

The festival will present a strong, diverse and unique program of films from Victoria, Australia and around the world, featuring forums, interviews, panel discussions as well as networking and professional development opportunities for filmmakers with a disability.

Have you ever wondered what the extent of eye care is in a third world country? Perspective is a new addition to Parent News where we look at what is happening on a national or international basis through someone else's eyes...

(Taken from Human Services News, Department of Human Services, April 2006, Vol 5, No.3:9)

A volunteering expedition to Tanzania has left Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital Nurse Julie Tyers eager to return to the East African country.

Ms Tyers, who works in day surgery, spent two weeks visiting remote villages in the Dodoma region as part of the Opto News Africa (ONA) Network's annual free eye camp.

Her days involved 6.30am starts, two-hour drives across unsealed roads and examining and treating hundreds of people before heading back to share a three-bedroom house with 12 other volunteers.

More than 2600 Tanzanians received free eye care thanks to the initiative. Ms Tyers said at each village, volunteers were confronted with long queues of people seeking treatment for conditions such as trachoma and cataracts.

"We became very efficient at setting up the clinic. I would often sit at just a school desk or on a stool."

"You had to be ingenious".

Ms Tyers is now keen to offer more assistance because, without sight, the villagers are unable to carry out the most basic survival tasks, such as gathering food or fetching water.

Link Disability Magazine - Australia's leading disability lifestyle magazine - has been providing information to the disability community for the past 26 years.

Whether you are a person with a disability, a carer, a health professional or disability organisation, Link offers information, advice and insights into life with a disability. Featuring opinions and perspectives directly from people with a disability, Link covers a diverse range of areas including news, issues, health, advocacy, resources, travel, sport, art, products, breakthroughs and people in the disability sector.

Link prides itself on its accessibility with articles written in easy-to-understand "plain English" printed in large clear font, all presented in a glossy full-colour, professionally designed format. Link is also available on audio-cassette. To obtain a free trial copy, contact Link's Subs Manager Mandy on 08 8201 3223 or subs@link.disability.com.au

Thank you for reading this edition of Parent News. If you wish to receive Parent News via email in the future, or have any feedback or suggestions in regards to this edition, please contact the BCA National Office.

If you have an article, information piece, poem or story that you would like to share with other parents, please forward this no later than 15th August, 2006 to Jessica Zammit by mail (PO Box 24, Sunshine, VIC 3020), email (jessica.zammit@bca.org.au) or contact Jessica on (03) 9372 6400.