ChariTEA Of The Quarter | VICTA

July 01, 2024 Georgina Webb

Who Are VICTA?

VICTA is a small but national charity working to empower children & young adults who are blind or partially sighted across the UK. Growing up with a vision impairment can bring lots of challenges – from education to social activities, as well as finding employment. Young people with sight loss & their parents find themselves facing battles to ensure they have the same opportunities as sighted children the same age.

How VICTA helps

We deliver programmes that bring young people & their families together to build strong support networks. We help the young people we support to gain confidence, self-belief, ambition & importantly, life-long friendships with other children their own age who share similar experiences. We help them challenge limiting assumptions they & others have about their own abilities.

“My daughter who had not smiled for weeks had no motivation to get up & go, was really struggling to socialise, arrived & found her people, found her own strength & felt positive. When we arrived home, she was ready to make the leap to asking for help & accepting it. Your weekends allow our children to be their full & real selves with no judgement, just pure adrenaline-filled fun, they leave feeling ready to reveal more of who they really are to their sighted friends.

We love that there are people of many ages attending, there are many talents on show, this gives hope & encouragement to the younger ones & their parents who often are facing a lot of fear & uncertainty.”

Parent who attended the VICTA Summer Family Weekend 2023

For parents, we manage our Parent Portal, a one-stop information hub, together with a programme of workshops to ensure they are equipped with the best possible knowledge & research to help their children thrive. & for those parents of very young children who may be in the process of receiving what can be a daunting diagnosis, we have an Early Years service which includes a Sensory Discovery Pack full of play ideas & information to provide crucial early support.

How VICTA is working together with Bird & Blend

You will find our posters in stores with links to our donation page, or click here to donate now.

Bird & Blend are also hosting a series of tea blending workshops for our Young Adults. They’ll get to experience Bird & Blend’s stores after hours & be guided through a traditional tea tasting session learning about different teas with an opportunity to create their own tea blend to take home. An amazing opportuniTEA!

If you have a vision impairment, you can visit their stores with confidence as VICTA delivered a sighted guide training session to their fantastic store managers. Thank you to the team at Bird & Blend for welcoming us & for your care & commitment to supporting customers who might need a little extra guidance.

Want to get more involved?

If you’d like to get further involved, why not consider volunteering on one of our activities? You could be guiding young people as they try activities such as climbing, canoeing or even photography for the first time! Or support VICTA by joining our London Marathon team & completing those famous 26.2 miles for a great cause!

Connect with us!

We have lots more brewing at VICTA, give us a follow & a like to stay up to date:
Follow VICTA online on Facebook, X @VICTAUK, Instagram, YouTube & on TikTok. Visit our website at victa.org.uk & get in touch at admin@victa.org.uk, 01908 240 831.