ACF Review with Eddie Kitchen - 100% Blind / 50% Deaf

20 Nov 2019 by Matt Grier

At the Andrew Cassell Foundation we aim to enable inclusivity within our sport of Sailing. To us this goes right down to our core from start to finish, how individuals view us and their experiences on the day.

One of our sailors Eddie Kitchen has by far the greatest impairment challenge for us. Eddie is 100% blind and 50% deaf. Challenges for him include, eyes burning in the sunshine, yes this still happens to him more than sighted people and like us, he needs to protect them with sunglasses, especially for long days on the water.

Yet our biggest challenge is that we have spent a lot of time working out why sometimes he’s fully engaged and sometimes not. This for others can often be presented as a personality trait. But knowing Eddies personality, vast sailing experience and knowledge developed over 20 plus years we knew there was more too it and were determined to not let that fly. So we tested, challenged on and off the water and questioned a lot. It turned out that hearing aids create a huge amount of wind background noise like the microphone on a VHF radio or mobile phone, this means he has to focus on what he can hear and then often doesn’t pick up key cues, especially when windy. Thus we on the side of getting people like Eddie sailing have a challenge to try and focus towards the top end of sailing to come up with solutions to explore communications equipment on board that can get wet. (Any contacts are welcome towards the Americas cup and Sail GP teams as were pretty sure Eddie could put it through the same destructive tests.)

It turns out by putting clear systems in place like our Team App also helps as Eddie uses a speech software on his phone, enabling planning ahead. This in turn helps make it a welcoming environment and easy for Eddie to be involved. We had to ask Eddie directly, with all of the challenges he faces, travelling for miles to get here from South Yorkshire, independently with he’s guide dog, ‘Why us?’, ‘What makes ACF the right choice for him that keeps him coming for more?’ And ‘What does our ACF Sailing App do for him?’

Eddie said

“The Team APP as part of what the ACF team are trying to do is such an integral part. It holds everything together and makes it very easy for everyone to see what is going on. I love the aspect that I can see all the events that are planned, easy sign up to take part and when the tickets become available buy and pay for them. I can see who is signed up to each event and this encourages people to take part when you can see each other especially when you’ve had a good time together.

The APP also keeps the conversation going so it allows us to carry on talking about the weekends and encourage people to express how they are feeling. I feel that the more people feel part of the family and that their voice is heard that they will want to give more to the ACF course.

The key to this is the APP as it keeps everyone together and we can all have an equal voice as it doesn’t discriminate. I can use it with a screen reader on an Iphone and it works very well for me. So let’s embrace the APP and all that ACF is doing threw the APP and make it
bigger and better.

If it wasn’t for this charity and the fact that the APP allows me to have an equal voice, I wouldn’t have ever taken part in Cowes Week and that was the pinnacle of my year this year.

I do often wonder why I keep coming back, but you’ve also given me something else which is making me grow and learn, like sessions on land, encouraging me to observe and then the opportunity to comment and give feedback to help others, I’ve not really done that before. Things like that give me more confidence. I also now try to speak a bit more clearly when speaking to Dave the skipper when we were sailing together to make it easier for him.’

Feedback and the ability to support individuals like Eddie makes what we are doing highly valuable and enabling all individuals to learn. Just having individuals like Eddie around helps fast track the learning for able individuals in how to support different types of disabilities in real life with guidance from others and the participants as a team.

If you want to find out more about us and what we do, our app and duplicate website www.acfsailing.org are the key places to look, along with our face book page. If you want to know more the please do touch base via info@acfsailing.org and will do our upmost to get you out on the water, being independent.

More stories like this will follow over the winter. Including from some of our able bodied sailors, who are with us as equals and make an integral part of our success. Also our supporters who help us achieve what we need to and helping reduce costs to keep driving the charity forwards who can also be found at https://acfsailing.teamapp.com/sponsors

We have a continual need to raise funds to keep the activity going and costs as low as possible. If you are able to donate you can easily via PayPal here https://www.paypal.com/gb/fundraiser/charity/3134705 or contact us directly. Also if you have the spare time, experience or opportunities to help or just contacts or friends who may be able to help then please do contact us as we’d love to hear from you.

Hope to see you all out on the water over the winter.

Yours sincerely,

The ACF Sailing Team.
Info@acfsailing.org
Registered Charity no. 1057742

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