Worthing College Student with Visual Impairment Delivers Speech at Parliament on her Education Experience

A Worthing College student who has visual impairment has shared her education story with an audience at the Houses of Parliament.

Niamh Bates, who is in her first year studying A Level Psychology, Politics and Fine Art, gave a three-minute speech to a number of invited guests which included MPs. She also met Tom Rutland, MP for East Worthing and Shoreham.

Niamh talked about her life in education with a visual impairment at primary school and high school. She also talked about how she got support from Blatchington Court Trust with a mentoring programme.

Niamh has been a member of Blatchington Court Trust in Hove since she was five. The trust supports, informs and empowers young people with sight loss under the age of 30 and their families throughout Sussex.

Talking about her speech, she said: “It started at the beginning of July, when Blatchington Court Trust, the charity I was with for the speech, came to me and asked if I wanted to speak in Parliament to represent them, which of course I said ‘yes please.’

“So, in August, I went up to London every few weeks to do training sessions, writing my speech, meeting the other people who were speaking and just kind of getting more confident and comfortable with what I was doing.

“We also had 1-to-1 sessions online for about an hour where we just focused on the speech, what we wanted to say, how we wanted to say it.”

Niamh said her speech was well-received, and she was praised by Mr Rutland, who sent her an email.

She said: “A load of people were very moved by it and a load of people remembered it, which is exactly what I intended to do.”

After college, Niamh is planning to go to university to study either art therapy, occupational therapy or a course in education.

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