In Touch

Vlad and Valeria Yeschenko are a young newly-wed Ukrainian couple. Vlad was clearing out and dismantling mines when one exploded, resulting in severe injuries, including the loss of his eyesight. The couple got married soon after Vlad's recovery. The BBC's senior international reporter, Orla Guerin visited the couple in their home at the edge of Kyiv to find out more about what happened and the impact that day has had on their lives. It is a story of war, loss, love, and a determination to help other people in the same boat, through the couple's charity 'Let's See the Victory'. This interview contains some graphic detail of injury.

On In Touch, we have been reporting for some time on the progress of video games becoming more accessible to blind people. The progress is slow but is surely happening and the most recent demonstration of this comes from a motor sport racing game called Forza Motorsport. This is thought to be the first blockbuster racing game accessible to the blind. Brandon Cole is a games accessibility consultant and he tells us about the features that allow blind and partially sighted people to grasp the throttle and get driving (virtually) .

Presenter: Peter White

Izabela Dłużyk is a blind female sound recordist from Poland. She tells Peter about her passion for sound recording, bird song and one of the last primeval forests in Europe, the Białowieża. She was recently the subject of a documentary with BBC World Service called Izabela in the Forest, where producer Monica Whitlock follows her around during one of her recording sessions and to immerse herself in the rich plethora of sounds there.

Can blind people do that?! We'd like to hear your experiences of when someone told you that you cannot pursue something due to your sight loss. Perhaps it was relating to education or work, or even a hobby. Let us know!

Presenter: Peter White

We discuss techniques for learning languages when you are visually impaired. Nowadays there are many methods that can be used; be it braille, smart phone apps, listening via synthetic speech etc and so we invited four visually impaired language enthusiasts to share their tips and experiences. Each of them use languages in different ways such as teaching, social meet ups, family relations and even providing interpretation within European politics.

Presenter: Peter White

Inclusive Farm in Bedfordshire is more than just a livestock farm. It is run by totally blind Mike Duxbury and his sighted partner and they open the farm up to those with disabilities to explore agriculture. In Touch pays a visit to hear about how Mike performs various farming tasks without any sight and, perhaps most importantly, to meet some of the animals.

Presenter: Peter White

Be My AI is an artificial intelligence engine that is being tested by Be My Eyes - an app that connects visually impaired smartphone users to sighted assistance. There are thousands of people currently testing the AI offering and it allows them to take pictures of their surroundings and the AI will describe, with great detail, what is in that image. For example, it can be helpful for things like navigation, describing clothing items or reading menus. However, a lot of its testers are greatly concerned over a recent change where the AI will no longer describe what is in an image, if there is a human present. Sean Dilley is a BBC journalist and user of Be My AI, and he describes the issues that could be behind these changes.

*After the time of recording this programme, it appears that the feature has been restored for some users.

Orla Guerin is the BBC's Senior International Correspondent and she has recently been back to war-torn Yemen, to catch up with a blind boy she met there two years ago. Ahmed made a particular impression because he was teaching his peers in his bombed-out school. Orla talks with Peter about what Ahmed is like and about his future ambitions.

Presenter: Peter White

We are hosting a question and answer session with the charity Guide Dogs. Many of you have been sending us your very considered questions and concerns about various aspects of how the organisation operates; including waiting lists, training methods, eligibility for new and replacement guide dogs and more. Answering these questions is Pete Osborne, who is is Guide Dogs' Chief Operations Officer.

Presenter: Peter White

Since 2017, the charity Guide Dogs have adopted a new way of training their dogs. It's called the STEP method, standing for Standardised Training for Excellent Partnerships. The method has received a lot of criticism, with people believing it is the cause of long waiting lists for new and replacement dogs, and so we paid a visit to a training centre in Atherton, Greater Manchester, to find out more about how it works and ask why their previous method of training was scrapped.

Presenter: Peter White

Website image description: Peter White sits smiling in the centre of the image, wearing a dark green jumper. Above Peter's head is the BBC logo (three individual white squares house each of the three letters). Bottom centre and overlaying the image are the words 'In Touch' and the Radio 4 logo (the word Radio in a bold white font, with the number 4 inside a white circle). The background is a bright mid-blue with two rectangles angled diagonally to the right. Both are behind Peter, one of a darker blue and the other is a lighter blue.

The International Blind Sports Federation has just concluded its first World Games in the UK, with most sports taking place across the University of Birmingham campus. Over a thousand athletes from 70 countries competed in various sports and for some, it was not just a medal on the cards, but also qualification points for the 2024 Paralympics. We attended the games and spoke to athletes, team officials and members of the public trying out visually impaired sports for the first time.

Presenter: Peter White

Faricimab, or as it is commercially known Vabysmo, is a drug that has recently been approved for use by the NHS to treat two eye diseases: diabetic macular oedema (DMO) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD), with fewer injections. Both conditions result in vision loss caused by swelling behind the eye, which can now be slowed or halted by injections. Robin Hamilton is an Ophthalmic Surgeon at Moorfield’s Eye Hospital and he provides details of how this drug works and Bernie Warren tells us about its prospects from a DMO patient perspective. Bernie was also on a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence panel, that helped approve the drug for NHS use.

Discovering Hands is a project in Germany that trains visually impaired women to perform breast examinations. The project involves using touch to locate early indications of breast cancer. Elvira Häußler is one of the women who is employed to perform them and she, along with gynaecologist Dr. Frank Hoffmann who came up with the idea, tell us more about it and whether it may one day come to the UK.

Presenter: Peter White

The RNIB recently advertised the role of Customer Support Officer, but there was a particular bit of wording that drew an instant and indignant reaction from a number of blind and partially sighted people who read it. The initial advert stated that the systems used within the role were not compatible with JAWS screen reader. The advert has since been amended to dispute this, stipulating that JAWS could be used with some work arounds, such as scripting. The RNIB's Director of Services, David Newbold addresses your concerns and sheds light on what happened.

The Lionesses, England's women's football team, are causing waves at the World Cup and FIFA have developed a way of making the games more accessible to visually impaired smart phone users. They, along with the Centre for Access to Football in Europe, are providing audio described commentary through the FIFA Interpreting App. It aims to fill in the gaps and deliver a better football experience for visually impaired fans.

To access the audio described commentary through the app, the following access code can be used: ADCFWWC2023 (this is case sensitive).

Presenter: Peter White