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Visually impaired people should be provided with the opportunities that others take for granted, says Phil Brough.

The status of visually impaired people is poor. We are a group of people that society uses to focus its sympathy, pushed around for the benefit of the rest, forced to live the prescribed life that visually impaired people are supposed to live - a totally dependent group. How else can it be explained why visually impaired people accept using a dog, when direct payments can be used to employ a person who can read and guide, and provide the means to independence through work?

Our expectations are the same as everyone else's - solid education, careers, stimulating relationships, children, holidays, contentment in retirement. Why should we want anything different? So what prevents us from having these things?

First, a definition: visual impairment is a condition that cannot be corrected by ordinary spectacles and includes the very small percentage of people that have no perception of light or are blind. Something like 95 per cent of people in this category have some useful sight. Am I na‹ve in thinking that if our communication needs were fully met, in most cases visual impairment would not prevent the ambitions outlined above being realised? Sadly, there are vested interests that ensure that the traditional ways of doing things always prevail.

There is a massive visual impairment industry: educational psychologists, paediatricians, teachers with "special" training, overstaffed "special" colleges, rehabilitation officers, mobility officers, social workers, opticians, optometrists. Yet if visually impaired people had the same opportunities as anyone else, this enormous machinery would not be needed. It is not just in the statutory sector where the problem lies - the major charities let us down too. Ninety-three per cent of visually impaired people are either unemployed or in some sort of sheltered employment. The charities have failed to persuade mainstream employers to change their traditional employment practices.

Visually impaired people do not have a politically active national organisation. Even in local areas there are few groups run for and by visually impaired people. Here in Shropshire, there is the Insight Group, and our experience only serves to underline the utter contempt that the power brokers have for us as citizens. The group was formed under a social services initiative to provide user input into the joint working planning process. But we decided to leave after 10 years of non-achievement. In all that time, Insight was unable to change a thing. Other agencies are also reluctant to accept the idea of campaigning visually impaired people. The Royal National Institute for the Blind offers no support, not even when Insight wanted to organise a conference to advise visually impaired people on benefits entitlements, suggesting instead that they send a speaker to talk to statutory officers who would then advise clients.

All of this is common experience for those who are visually impaired. If it ever happens to you, you'll find out what I mean.

Phil Brough is a visually impaired service user.