Brooklyn police take steps to raise funds for training guide dogs for the blind

Brooklyn police station completed 132 522 steps in the Step Up for Guide Dogs campaign to raise funds for the training of guide dogs.

Christene Barnard, a telecommunication operator at the Brooklyn police station, suffers from visual impairment and relies on a guide dog to get by.

Bernard believes having the guide dog gave her independence. But not everyone has access to that independence as the training of a guide dog can be costly.

The funds will go towards the South African Guide Dogs Association (Sagda) for the blind which trains guide dogs for the blind and for people who suffer from autism.

Police spokesperson Sergeant Webster Scheepers said, “These steps were made during a crime prevention walk in the Hatfield, Menlo Park and Nieuw Muckleneuk suburbs.

“It was also a fun way to keep the fitness levels up and to show the SAPS promote and protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities and provide them with accessible services.”

Barnard has had her guide dog, Hazel, for three years. She shared her story with Rekord.

“I was between three and five years old when I started having challenges with my vision,” she said.

“I was diagnosed with an auto-immune system disease called Still’s disease when I was a child. By the time I was diagnosed, it was attacking the centre of my eye and there weren’t a lot of doctors that knew about the disease.”

Barnard said her condition deteriorated further and the transplant could not be done.

“The doctors tried to do a transplant but I lost all the vision I had in my left eye and was left with little vision in my right eye.”

Barnard said her vision worsened as she grew older as a protein layer grew over her eyes.

“At the age of 27, things became worse. I could not see a glimpse of colour.

“I remember when my son was five years old, he came back from school with his photos.  I was so excited to see them because I could see colour before then I was so sad when I could not see anything. The photo was just a white block,” she explained.

When she moved to Pretoria seven years ago, Barnard said she relied on colleagues to give her a lift to work, which inconvenienced them. She travels to work, shops, go to kickboxing classes, and many other places alone with her guide dog.

“For most people who are blind, they rely on families and friends to get to places and live their lives. Without that, they are sort of housebound which is not nice.”

She said her only struggle was getting into restaurants or e-hailing service cars with her guide dog.

“Some people do not get that by law, guide dogs are an exception to the no-pet policies because the blind community depend on them.”

Events manager of the Sagda guide dog challenge, Jackie Quail, said so far the association managed to raise about R180 000 but have not reached their target yet.

“We have trained 1 690 guide dogs in total since the association opened. This is not counting service and autism support dogs.”

Quial said on average the training of a guiding dog costs R500 000.

“We are aiming to train around 40 dogs this year.”

Quial said the charity organisation relies on donations and fundraising initiatives and events to raise money to train the dogs.

Members of the public interested in donating can email her at JackieQ@guidedog.org.za.

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