Vision Australia is calling for volunteers in the Goulburn Valley to help support the vision-impaired community.
Volunteers can help Vision Australia clients with things such as their shopping and learning to walk with their cane or seeing eye dog.
But the big need is for the radio volunteers to read the daily news for people who struggle to, or can’t read, due to a vision impairment.
Before the pandemic, Vision Australia used to provide readings of regional papers from Yarrawonga to Seymour and Bendigo to Eildon.
“We do have about 15 newspapers across our listening area, and we can only at the moment read two or three of them,” Vision Australia volunteer partnerships co-ordinator Pam Power said.
Right now the radio volunteers are operating on reduced broadcasting hours, having had to cancel the 7am reading and only broadcast at 1pm.
“We want to go back to being able to read all the papers in our area so that everyone who's listening knows what's happening in their actual local community,” Ms Power said.
“But we don't have the volunteers to do that at the moment.”
The radio volunteers provide a specialised service that is vital for the vision-impaired community getting their local news, regional radio co-ordinator Helen Gwilliam said.
“It's a different service to lots of news,” she said.
“There's a familiarity about hearing voices from Vision Australia, people learn to read in a way that's very clear. It's not rushed news, and it's your local news.”
• To volunteer with Vision Australia go to visionaustralia.org/volunteer