by Philip Kimberley (United Kingdom)
Paper given at the EBU Mobility and Transport Conference held in Paris on 14-15 October 2002
We are a growing and dynamic organisation, but only two staff !
The IFGDSB's mission
To encourage and advance the concept and provision of guide dogs worldwide as a means of independent mobility for people with a vision disability.The IFGDSB's objectives
This is being achieved throughout our member network by :-
- Matching visually impaired people with suitable dogs and teaching them how to work together
- Ensuring the highest levels of safety and quality : dog breeding, staff selection, training of visually impaired people with guide dogs
- Running our accreditation programme - a mark of quality
- Advising those who want to start a guide dog school
- Transferring knowledge by student exchange, seminars, house magazine, an internationally recognised training programme, and our new website (www.ifgdsb.org.uk)
- Raising awareness of guide dogs with governments, non-governmental organisations and the private sector
- Encouraging members to support equal access rights across the world for guide dog school graduates
- Working with other organisations for the benefit of the visually impaired
Our future plans include :
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- Increasing membership to 80 by 2005
- Using our upgraded website to :
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1. Promote our activities
2. Exchange knowledge more speedily
3. Run our organisation more cost effectively
- Reviewing and improving our accreditation programme to :
Be more relevant to members' needs Be more value adding- Designing and financing a scholarship fund for training guide dog mobility instructors from small schools - particularly Eastern Europe
- Initiating a genetics research programme to breed better temperament dogs
- Leading the establishment of an internationally recognised qualification for guide dog mobility instructors
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