Add@Me Learning Methods (EN)


Title: A blindfolded walk
Summary: This activity allow participants to experience, through a simulation exercise, the difficulties a blind person may face while walking (e.g. obstacles on his/her way). Overall, it allows participants to make a new experience; a walk without seeing anything.
Objectives: Enable participants to experience difficulties a blind person faces while walking (especially in relation to the presence of obstacles on his/her way)
Materials / Equipment needed: White sticks (one for each participant), blindfolds for participants
Group size: Any size
Duration: 30 minutes
Step-by-step instructions:

Before implementing this activity, the visually impaired facilitator must have identified a path that blindfolded participants can walk through. It can be both inside a building, but also outside, in a non-crowded street, for safety reasons. You can, for example, walk all around the building where the workshop takes place. At first, the visually impaired facilitator shows to the workshop’s participants how to use correctly the white stick. He/she needs to show, for example, how to hold it correctly with the hand, how to move it on the floor in order to detect obstacles and how to use it when approaching the stairs.

Then, the facilitator may organize this activity in 2 different ways:

Some participants are blindfolded and they are provided with a white stick. In small groups (preferably 3-4 People) they walk using the white stick, in the path previously identified by the vi facilitator. Participants who are not blindfolded are invited to watch that everything goes smoothly (no danger for the blindfolded ones). They check the safety of the blindfolded participants while walking, without touching them or guiding them with their hands. Eventually, they can just provide verbal information (e.g. watchout there is a lamp post on your left). When the walk is over, the groups switches and now it will be the participants who were not blindfolded, to try walking in the dark wearing the blindfolds.

In the second version, preferably to be implemented after the activity “Learning the Sighted Guide Skills” the participants which are not blindfolded can guide the blindfolded ones using the previously learned Sighted Guide Skills. In this case, the emphasis will be put more on the experience to walk with a guide, while being in the dark, and to try the Guide Skills. There will be less opportunity for blindfolded participants to try to detect obstacles. The sense of trust in another person, while being accompanied, will be experienced. The activity ends with a debriefing held by the facilitator using some questions for reflection e.g. the ones of the “Reflection / Evaluation questions” section.
Reflection and evaluation questions: To conclude the activity the facilitator asks participants to share their impressions, thoughts and feelings. Some questions might be: What did you find difficult? How did you feel? What did you learn/find out? How did you feel while being accompanied by another person?
Possible risk factors: It won’t be completely consistent with reality, but it gives an idea of the difficulties visually impaired People find on the street. It is also important to highlight that the difficulty and fear of being in the dark, it is something which relates only to sighted People who are blindfolded and it is not a kind of fear/difficulty that blind people have.
Variations: If this activity is performed with youngsters under the legal age it is preferable to have the agreement of their parents or to organise this activity inside a building (for safety reasons). If you are in a school, it is sufficient that teachers assist the visually impaired facilitator in order to guarantee safety for the young participants.
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