Centre will help families
Deaf and blind children benefit, thanks to Clive
WITHCOTT dad Clinton Williams has nothing but thanks for Clive Berghofer after he donated $2.8 million towards a Toowoomba-based centre for deaf and blind children.
His daughter Ella, nine, was diagnosed at birth with vision difficulties and has been accessing RIDBC services since she could walk and talk.
The RIDBC Clive Berghofer Centre officially opened this week, and while it has been offering tele-services for a number of years, it is Queensland’s first physical centre.
Ella currently has a once-a-week video conference with the RIDBC in Sydney, either with a group or one-on-one. She is learning braille and is able to interact with children who have disabilities similar to hers.
“Well, it is going to give us local access number one,” Mr Williams said.
“Sydney is a long way away and we do try and get down once a year. They have a braille camp where the children go down and get together. But this gives us a local centre to do some of those similar things on a more regular basis.”
Mr Williams said while he never had hope a centre would open locally, he had dreamt of it.
“If we didn’t have RIDBC at all, basically she would have very limited services or they would be Brisbane-based,” he said.
“We are just really grateful to Clive Berghofer in particular. I will get emotional so I won’t say too much... it’s very hard to get money and get funding out there these days, so for someone to do what he has done, means a lot.”
RIDBC chief executive Chris Rehn said it was Australia’s largest independent provider of hearing and vision services and Toowoomba had grown to need its own facility.
After meeting with Mr Berghofer about two years ago, it had been in the works since.
❝ Well it is going to give us local access number one. — Clinton Williams