Visionary launches Making Lived Experience Matter podcasts
Call to action to share podcasts by people who are blind and partially sighted about their experiences and the importance of “making lived experience matter”.
Visionary’s Making Lived Experience Matter project, led by Project Manager Chris Wilsdon at Kent Association of the Blind along with Nina Chesworth from Visionary, has worked with local sight loss charities in London to highlight the importance and value of lived experience in organisations, at leadership level.
As part of the project, five podcasts have been produced by a diverse group of people, each with lived experience of vision impairment – Clare Burgess, CEO of Sensory Services by Sight for Surrey; David Aldwinckle, Director of Insight and Customer Voice at RNIB; Natalie Doig, Director of Hareonna Diversity Limited; Nina Chesworth, Projects and Campaigns Co-ordinator at Visionary; and Raj Mehta, Trustee of Thomas Pocklington Trust. We are so grateful to them for sharing with us in the podcasts their experiences of “making lived experience matter” and what it means to them. You can listen here to the making lived experience matter podcasts – Spotify.
In her podcast, Clare Burgess, CEO of Sight from Surrey emphasised that,
"If you want to be the best organisation for people who need you, you need the best people with you."
Fiona Sandford, CEO of Visionary said,
"The best people to co-design and co-deliver issues relating to vision impairment are the people who live with vision impairment."
Fiona went on to say that,
"My hope is that by listening to the podcasts, it encourages and inspires organisations to be brave and to take chances and encourage the world to listen and understand that lived experience is an asset - something to be valued, sought out and embraced."
Call to action
In order to get more people to understand the importance and value of “making lived experience matters”, there are some things everyone can do:
- Listen to the podcasts.
- Share the podcasts with at least one person, whether that’s inside the sight loss sector or outside the sector.
- Add lived experience to your meeting agendas.
- Tell us about your experiences by emailing Nina Chesworth
Visionary would like to thank Kent Association for the Blind for seconding Chris Wilsdon to manage this project and thank Chris of course! We would also like to thank Steph Cutler at Making Lemonade for all her support and Vision Foundation for the grant which made all of this happen.
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