Minister visits Birmingham-based charity’s national event

Birmingham-based Queen Alexandra Charity welcomed the Rt Hon Sir Stephen Timms, Minister for Social Security and Disability to learn more about the Sight Village initiative.

Sight Village is a series of touring exhibitions across the UK supporting people with varying sight loss.

Sight Village is one QAC’s enterprises. The charity now supports young adults with learning difficulties and disabilities through education, residential and community services.

However, its roots can be traced back to 1847 when it worked with the blind and visually impaired (VI) community.

Sight Village’s latest exhibition was held in London last month with Sir Stephen being welcomed to the event by principal and chief executive of QAC, Bev Jessop.

The minister said: “My visit to Sight Village has shown me again that it is Assistive and Accessible Technology that is key to enabling independence, greater inclusion and participation for disabled people.

“We are committed to increasing awareness of existing assistive technologies and exploring ways to build capacity and digital skills, to create opportunities for disabled people in all areas of life.”

Jagdeep Soor, managing director of QAC Enterprises, said: “We were delighted to welcome Minister Timms to our Sight Village event in London.

“Sight Village is just one of our enterprises whose profits support the charity.

“The others are All Fomats (large format print, braille, audio etc), carbon fibre canes and room hire.”

Pictured: Bev Jessop and Sir Stephen Timms