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Listen to this programmeFactsheet of this programmeTranscript of this programme Print this page FactsheetTRANSPORT IN LONDONThe programme discuss public transport in London. Transport for London鈥檚 website: INDEPENDENT THEATRE COUNCIL The Independent Theatre Council (ITC) is running a Fast Track scheme for disabled people. Fast Track is a project which aims to equip participants with the skills and knowledge that they need to 鈥淔ast Track鈥 into a career in Arts administration and management. Fast Track offers: 鈥 A 15 week, full-time work placement within a host Performing Arts company. All host companies are members of ITC, SOLT, or TMA. 鈥 Weekly mentoring and ongoing support. 鈥 13 intensive training courses to cover topics such as Marketing, Fundraising, Networking, Contracts, and Leadership. 鈥 A 3 day residential preparatory training course. 鈥 Training bursary of 拢2250 plus travel allowance. 鈥 1 year鈥檚 free ITC membership. Visit their website to download a Fast Track application pack: The application deadline is Friday 29 February 2008. ITC 12 The Leathermarket Weston Street London SE1 3ER Tel: 020 7403 1727 Fax: 020 7403 1745 BRISTOL ACTIONNAIRES CLUB Action for Blind People is launching the Bristol Actionnaires Club on Saturday 1st March. The club will offer blind and partially sighted children the opportunity to take part in a range of sports including goalball, football, basketball, athletics and trampolining. The Bristol Actionnaires will meet every Saturday, 10.30am 鈥 12.30pm at the City Academy, Russell Town Avenue, Bristol BS5 9JH. The Sports Development Team at Action for Blind People can advise on where to buy adapted sports equipment. CONTACT ACTION FOR BLIND PEOPLE 14-16 Verney Road London SE16 3DZ National Freephone Helpline: 0800 915 4666 THE BLIND 'The Blind' is the first theatre production featuring on all blind cast and not put on by a specialist company. 'The Blind' is showing at The Arcola Theatre in London until 1st March 2008. CONTACTS ARCOLA THEATRE 27 Arcola St London E8 2DJ Boxoffice: 020 7503 1646 Administration: 020 7503 1645 TICKETS FOR THE BLIND 拢15/拢0 concessions 拢15/拢10 Concession No Concession on Saturdays Tuesdays are Pay What You Can (subject to availability) DIRECTIONS The nearest station is Dalston Kingsland Station (now part of the London Overground network, so you can use Oyster), and there are a multitude of Buses to Dalston from all-over London (30, 38, 67, 76, 149, & 243). By Tube: Tube to Highbury & Islington then Bus 30 or London Overground Tube to Liverpool Street then bus 149 If you require accesible transport, you might find it easiest to take bus number 149 from Liverpool Street Station and get off at Princess May Primary School (at the end of Arcola Street, a few hundred yards from the Theatre). GENERAL CONTACTS RNIB 105 Judd Street London WC1H 9NE Helpline: 0845 766 9999 Tel: 0207 388 1266 (switchboard/overseas callers) Web: The RNIB provides information, support and advice for anyone with a serious sight problem. They not only provide Braille, Talking Books and computer training, but imaginative and practical solutions to everyday challenges. The RNIB campaigns to change society's attitudes, actions and assumptions, so that people with sight problems can enjoy the same rights, freedoms and responsibilities as fully sighted people. They also fund pioneering research into preventing and treating eye disease and promote eye health by running public health awareness campaigns. HENSHAWS SOCIETY FOR BLIND PEOPLE (HSBP) John Derby House 88-92 Talbot Road Old Trafford Manchester M16 0GS Tel: 0161 872 1234 Email: info@hsbp.co.uk Web: Henshaws provides a wide range of services for people who have sight difficulties. They aim to enable visually impaired people of all ages to maximise their independence and enjoy a high quality of life. They have centres in: Harrogate, Knaresborough, Liverpool, Llandudno, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Salford, Southport and Trafford. THE GUIDE DOGS FOR THE BLIND ASSOCIATION (GDBA) Burghfield Common Reading RG7 3YG Tel: 0118 983 5555 Email: guidedogs@guidedogs.org.uk Web: The GDBA鈥檚 mission is to provide guide dogs, mobility and other rehabilitation services that meet the needs of blind and partially sighted people. ACTION FOR BLIND PEOPLE 14-16 Verney Road London SE16 3DZ Tel: 0800 915 4666 (info & advice) Web: Registered charity with national cover that provides practical support in the areas of housing, holidays, information, employment and training, cash grants and welfare rights for blind and partially-sighted people. Leaflets and booklets are available. NATIONAL LEAGUE OF THE BLIND AND DISABLED Central Office Swinton House 324 Grays Inn Road London WC1X 8DD Tel: 020 7837 6103 Textphone: 020 7837 6103 National League of the Blind and Disabled is a registered trade union and is involved in all issues regarding the employment of blind and disabled people in the UK. NATIONAL LIBRARY FOR THE BLIND (NLB) RNIB Customer Services on 0845 762 6843 Email: cservices@rnib.org.uk Web: The NLB is a registered charity which helps visually impaired people throughout the country continue to enjoy the same access to the world of reading as people who are fully sighted. Trustees from the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) and the National Library for the Blind (NLB) have agreed to merge the library services of both charities as of 1 January 2007, creating the new RNIB National Library Service. EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION DISABILITY HELPLINE (England) FREEPOST MID02164 Stratford upon Avon CV37 9BR Tel: 08457 622 633 Textphone: 08457 622 644 Fax: 08457 778 878 Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri 9:00 am-5:00 pm; Wed 8:00 am-8:00 pm. Enquiry: englandhelpline2@equalityhumanrights.com EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION HELPLINE WALES Freepost RRLR-UEYB-UYZL 1st Floor 3 Callaghan Square Cardiff CF10 5BT 0845 604 8810 - Wales main number 0845 604 8820 - Wales textphone 0845 604 8830 - Wales fax 9:00 am-5:00 pm, Monday to Friday (an out-of-hours service will start running soon) Enquiry: waleshelpline@equalityhumanrights.com EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION HELPLINE SCOTLAND Freepost RRLL-GYLB-UJTA The Optima Building 58 Robertson Street Glasgow G2 8DU 0845 604 5510 - Scotland Main 0845 604 5520 - Scotland Textphone 0845 604 5530 - Scotland 鈥 Fax 9:00 am-5:00 pm, Monday to Friday (an out-of-hours service will start running soon) Enquiry: scotlandhelpline@equalityhumanrights.com DISABLED LIVING FOUNDATION 380-384 Harrow Road London W9 2HU Tel: 0845 130 9177 Web: The Disabled Living Foundation provide information and advice on disability equipment. The 大象传媒 is not responsible for external websites聽 General contacts Back to top TranscriptWhiteGood evening. News for the dreamers amongst you tonight, whether you fancy yourself on an Oscar-winning or an Olympic podium. We'll be finding out about genuine opportunities to learn the trade of theatre administration. And we'll be finding out about Actionnaires, where visually-impaired youngsters who may be missing out at school are getting the chance to play sport, everything from judo to scuba diving. But we start, rather more mundanely, on the buses. Bus journey That's an example of the kind of thing you'd hear if you were travelling on one of around 1200 buses. It's known as iBus technology and the plan is for Transport for London or TfL to have it installed on all its 8,200 buses by early next year. The technology announces the next stop as well as the route number and final destination of the bus. Now reports in the media that TfL was planning to reduce the number of announcements caused some of you to contact us, voicing your concern about the possible reduction of what for many blind and partially-sighted people is seen as a really liberating service and one which had been fought long and hard for. In fact it turns out that a few of these buses have a glitch which means that these announcements are repeated every time the doors shut - a cause of considerable irritation for some passengers who have themselves contacted TfL to complain about it. So is this just a case of ironing out some teething problems or is there a genuine cause for concern? Well Simon Reed is TfL's iBus project director and he tried to clear the situation up for our reporter Mani Djazmi when they met on the number 148. Bus announcement One, four, eight to Shepherd's Bush. Djazmi Well that's what the iBus sounds like and I'm sitting on a bus, it's the 148 from Victoria train station through Central London going west and I'm with Simon Reed, who is the iBus project director. So Simon, what can you tell our listeners who are worried that the policy of announcing the next stop on the bus and in fact also the route the bus is taking and its final destination, that policy is going to be reduced or even stopped? Reed I can assure your listeners that currently there are no plans to reduce the next stop or destination announcements that we're offering on the London buses. Just to be clear we have two types of announcements that we have with the system. The first one is a stop announcement that gives the name of the stop about 200 metres before you reach it, to give passengers time to collect their belongings and get ready to leave the vehicle. And the second one is a destination announcement that is given just after passengers board and there are currently no plans to alter either of those two messages. What we've been aiming to do is to get the phrasing, volume and frequency of those and the timing of when they're made correct and what we've been doing is getting some new facilities to enable us to have better control over that. Djazmi That word currently speaks volumes, does that mean that there's a possibility that things might change in the future? Reed It's just exactly the same as we discussed about volume earlier - from the soundings that we made clearly we had some adjustments to make to volume, it wasn't right, it was felt not to be right, we could see that it wasn't right and we needed to react. And now we need to constantly review what we're doing as we roll it out on the different routes and demographies we have around London. So I cannot guarantee everything but we will make sure that we consult with the relative groups should we feel that changes are required. Djazmi So it's not an absolute guarantee that at some point in the future announcements will not be reduced or stopped? Reed Well they could be increased as well, it's, as I said, it's just a review process that we will do in consultation with the bodies that we usually consult with. Djazmi Your travellers and feedback that you've received, they said that the volume was too loud or pronunciations were incorrect or annoying so they were changed, so what kind of feedback do you think it would take for announcements to be reduced or stopped? Reed I don't think it works like that, it's not about a number of complaints or a type of complaint. We've always said this is about trying to make bus travel as accessible to everybody, all those people who really need these announcements are clearly a priority group and we wouldn't do anything without consulting with them. Djazmi How far down the line are we in terms of kitting out your entire fleet of buses with this system? Reed We did an initial pilot back at December 2005, early 2006, we've now started the programme proper, we started it in 2007 and that's to fit out 8,200 buses and we're on target to complete that in early 2009. Currently there's 1200 buses out there on the road fully fitted with a complete system. In early 2009 we'll have completed the entire programme. Djazmi So rather than considering reducing it or stopping it you're actually pressing on with rolling it out completely? Reed Absolutely right. We're going to get this system rolled out across all of London's bus fleet for the benefit of all of London's passengers. Djazmi Have you been in touch with any other major bus companies to see if this system can be rolled out elsewhere in the country? Reed Yeah, there is quite a network of bus operators around the UK and several of them do have similar systems or at least are able to put these systems in place should they wish to do so. But clearly the scale of London is such that London is being seen as a bit of a prototype for the audio announcements and hopefully they will learn from the progress that we're making. Bus announcement Lempster Terrace. White That's Simon Reed, iBus project director for Transport for London, with Mani Djazmi. Now this coming weekend the latest in a series of sports organisations for blind and partially-sighted youngsters is being launched in Bristol. They're called Actionnaires and in a moment we'll hear from 15-year-old Maddy Kirkman who's been visiting one of the London ones. But first we're joined by Colin Vince of Action for Blind People, now that's the charity which has been setting them up and offering them support. So Colin, first of all, what is Actionnaires? Vince Well our Actionnaires clubs are multi-sports clubs for blind and partially-sighted children and young people, really offering them an opportunity to just play and enjoy a variety of sports on a weekly basis. And the idea really is to offer them opportunities across as many sports as possible and being - receiving coaching/tuition from professional sports coaches. White And what you know what was the drive, if you like, to set them up? Vince I think the drive really for Action for Blind People, as an organisation, was that really recognised there wasn't enough being done for visually-impaired children and young people in sport. In one area particularly was education and much of the time these children we found were being left on the sidelines. One of the real reasons why we believe Actionnaires clubs have been so successful was - is the fact that mainstream sports clubs really sort of fail to cater for a visually-impaired person's or child's needs. Our clubs are very much about providing the adapted equipment, providing the trained staff that are visual awareness trained and of course giving them a real opportunity to access sport. White Shouldn't we be pressing the schools to do that though, I mean you're doing this because it isn't being done but I guess if mainstreaming is going to mean anything it ought to apply in sport as well as academic studies didn't it? Vince I think there could be a little bit more work that could be done with the schools, I think it's difficult to point the finger directly at the schools and the PE teachers as individuals. I think that really it's about educating people across a whole range of audiences, whether it be PE teachers, community sports clubs, national sports governing bodies, it's really about making sure that they've got adequate coaching qualifications in place which are specifically catering for training coaches/teachers to work with visually-impaired children and young people. White And what about the range of sports and games and activities that you can do? Vince Well our model really within Actionnaires is all about variety, we really believe that the more variety we offer the children the more interested they will become in sport and hopefully the more successful they'll become in playing sport. White So can you really do scuba diving then? Vince We've done scuba diving in a number of our clubs yes, yes, it takes - clearly we need professionally trained scuba diving teachers and clubs to work with but yes it's been completed and enjoyed on a number of occasions. White Well Maddy Kirkman, who attends a mainstream school in south east London, she went along as a participant and a reporter for one of these clubs for Radio 4's education programme The Learning Curve and yesterday I asked Maddy what she'd made of the experience. Kirkman Well the Actionnaires is obviously a very well organised group. The coaches for the individual sports and the main guy who was running and encouraging the children were obviously well trained in their job, which is really good to see, especially as most of the kids there were a lot younger than me - seven, eight, nine year olds where encouragement is very important. White And what kind of things were they doing when you went? Kirkman The main warm up activities are like the ones you do in primary school - running around in the space, throwing bean bags, jumping through hoops - that sort of thing. And then later on we did some judo practice and in the afternoon they got a chance to go swimming. White Now what do you think is really the significance of this group and how does it tie in with your own sporting activities? Kirkman I think that for a lot of visually impaired young children, especially those in primary, PE can be quite a difficult thing to get involved in, especially if the teachers aren't quite aware of how to get the children involved with the other fully sighted young people, especially with games like rugby and football where you've got the ball and the teamwork. So Actionnaires provides a space with trained instructors where these children can get their fair share of sports in an environment that they feel happy in. White So you mean when you talk about sports like football and rugby you mean basically the visually-impaired children just don't get picked for games, they probably don't get picked for impromptu games ... Kirkman That can happen. White Yeah, yeah. What's your own experience been - not necessary of rugby, I don't think you play that, but of sport in general in a mainstream school? Kirkman My experience at sport has been quite positive because I lost my sight at the age of seven it was quite important for me to build up my strength after the illness. So both my parents and my teachers were very encouraging in trying to get me involved with all the PE that took place. And at the age of about 11 I got heavily involved with swimming and athletics, which I still do today and compete and train at a national level and looking forward to training and teaching other disabled young people. So my experience has been quite lucky I think because I had a school that was prepared to go the extra mile to make sure I got what I needed. White But of course they're quite individual sports aren't they - swimming and athletics - I mean .. Kirkman Yeah they're individual disciplines. White What about team games? Kirkman Team games - I've always found hard, I never particularly enjoyed but because of the other sports that I was involved with I never thought that was a great loss. But at my primary and secondary school they've both been very supportive in finding ways round things, I have a massive novelty shuttle cock with a bell in it which I choose for badminton at school which was quite interesting. White But did you get the impression that these youngsters were perhaps getting a chance to do things that they weren't doing anywhere else? Kirkman Oh definitely, they were so pleased to be there and to get the chance to do it and their families were as well because I think the parents are very aware that often these kids are left behind and when the teacher's explaining things or in the game itself they don't get the chance to join in like everybody else. Whereas in this session they're all mucking in together and they're all having a lot of fun. White Maddy Kirkman and before that Colin Vince of Action for Blind People and good luck to Bristol who are having their scheme starting at the weekend. Well if sport doesn't inspire you (as it does me) and your passion lies more with the performing arts (as it does with our producer) then this next item could grant you more than just stage-door access to the theatre profession. The Independent Theatre Council, the ITC - a lot of initials this week sorry - is looking for applicants for its latest Fast Track programme which is a 15 week course designed to encourage disabled people to take up jobs within theatre management and administration. Well Cheryl Gabriel went along to the ITC to meet the scheme's co-ordinator, Kevin Durjun, and she asked him why he felt there was a need for the course. Durjun Well I've worked in theatre administration and theatre management now for several years and in my experience it's a very, very samey sort of environment - mainly white, mainly middle class, in fact I was the only Asian person pretty much. I'm usually the only Asian person who I tend to meet at events. In terms of disabled people in my experience again it tends to be a sort of more token disabled person, somebody on the front of house or somebody who's disabled and they might be an usher or something like that but never anybody actually really high up the food chain really. So the whole purpose of running this programme is to get more disabled people into it so that they can then begin to make the decisions and they can then begin to affect policies which will then encourage more disabled people to enter into it, it's really important. Gabriel Do you find that you're getting a lot of interest from the disabled community in the course? Durjun It's taken a while and I think some of the reasons for that is that disabled people can sometimes feel oh this is another scheme, another project to get us in to somewhere and I think there's a bit of a sense of fatigue with that. Gabriel Are they justified, I mean do they any of them make it or do you know of people who've got jobs as a result of this course? Durjun Yes, yes absolutely, absolutely, we ran our first Fast Track for disabled people last year and a pretty decent proportion of people have gone from being unemployed to actually having employment. Gabriel So what sort of people are you looking for then? Durjun We are looking for people with transferable skills, they need to be enthusiastic but I think the main thing is that they've got to want to do it because it's a fiercely competitive arena out there, so you've actually got to really want to do it, you've got to be passionate to do it. You don't need to have experience because we're helping people to get the experience and we're helping people who might feel a bit unconfident to gain that confidence. And when it goes right it goes really, really right and it can help people to leave behind some of those issues that might be holding them back. Clip from The Blind I'm tired of sitting here. I'm tired of being here, I feel as we're all too far apart, let's try to get closer together, it's beginning to feel cold. I don't dare get up. Best to stay where we are. You never know what there might be between us. Gabriel Well that was a clip from a play called The Blind which is currently running at London's Arcola Theatre. One of the performers in the play is Margo Virginia Cargill and Margo's blind herself and was a participant on the Fast Track scheme last year. So I'm going to go to Margo's house in East London and ask her: Did you get the job you've got now as a result of that? Cargill No I didn't because it's not a performance based training, it's actually training you to deal with the other side of things - the management side of theatre. Gabriel Okay so how did you get on to the course, what drew your attention to it? Cargill Well I really wanted to have an understanding of the management structure within a theatre company and understand the production process as well. And I felt that the Fast Track programme would really give me great insight into that, which it actually did. Gabriel What sort of skills did they teach you or try to teach you? Cargill Well a great deal from finance to how to manage people, just a really broad overview. Gabriel One of the things that Kevin Durjun said was that sometimes people - disabled people or people in sort of minority groups think oh it's just another course for us and there's an almost paying a bit of lip service to it, what did you think of the standard and the quality of this particular course? Cargill I thought the standard was very high, all of the people that - the trainers that were on the course were very much a part of the industry, they're not just people who just train other people, they actually are doing what they are training you to do. For instance financial management - the person who came in to train us for that particular module she actually manages the accounts for quite a few theatre companies, her company does. We had people who are active within the industry. It's a very well respected course too, people know that if you've been on the Fast Track programme exactly what you've done and I just found it to be incredibly beneficial, I came away from it just really knowing and understanding a lot more. Gabriel Would you recommend the course to someone who's listening? Cargill Definitely. And apply now because the closing date is Friday 29th February. Gabriel In fact I think we can get Kevin Durjun to actually tell us exactly what sort of person they're looking for and how exactly to apply. Durjun Okay, there's an application pack, the application pack is available in accessible formats, they can download that from the website, which is: itc-arts.org or I imagine they can go to your website and download it. Gabriel Indeed. White Kevin Durjun ending Cheryl's report and as was said there, of course, all the details will be on our Action Line. And on Thursday's You and Yours there's a chance to hear more about the course and also to hear from a former Fast Tracker who's now in the business. That's it for today but do call or email with any comments or queries you have. The number for that Action Line is 0800 044 044 and of course you can download a podcast of this evening's programme from tomorrow. From me Peter White, multi-tasking producer Cheryl Gabriel and the rest of the team goodbye. Back to top |
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