Holidays for the visually impaired: Seable runs crowdfunding campaign

Seable is the only multi-award win­ning tour oper­at­or in the United King­dom to cre­ate assisted, act­ive, and tailored hol­i­days for the visu­ally impaired.

[This “GT” ‘spon­sor mes­sage’ was offered free-of-charge to assist Seable in their crowd­fund­ing cam­paign.]

We strive to cre­ate access­ible hol­i­days that improve inde­pend­ence, inclu­sion, and well­being, offer­ing indi­vidu­al oppor­tun­it­ies to increase con­fid­ence, learn new skills, and make lifelong friends. 

Our won­der­ful cli­ents are involved every step of the way, giv­ing them the oppor­tun­ity to take a lead in plan­ning activities. 

Through our trips, cus­tom­ers find the con­fid­ence to go abroad inde­pend­ently, often for the very first time. For some it’s the thrill of try­ing a new sport, meet­ing new people and par­ti­cip­at­ing in life-chan­ging adven­tures. For oth­ers it’s simply the free­dom to enjoy a fully tailored and stress-free break. 

We believe that the joys of a hol­i­day should be access­ible to everyone. 

Through our work we raise pub­lic aware­ness of issues around sight loss and encour­age organ­isa­tions to offer access­ible ser­vices, activ­it­ies, and volun­teer­ing opportunities. 

Read about our ori­gin story and social impact.

» Click here to contribute to Seable’s crowdfunding campaign «

Challenges: Why we need your help 

Seable are run­ning a crowd­fund­ing cam­paign to raise essen­tial funds that will enable us to recov­er and rebuild post-pan­dem­ic; to safely con­tin­ue our work deliv­er­ing high qual­ity, access­ible, and afford­able hol­i­days for the visu­ally impaired community.

The impact of COVID-19 has been extremely tough on the visu­ally-impaired com­munity. There are over 350,000 blind people in the UK, of which two-thirds have become less inde­pend­ent and isol­ated since the start of the pandemic. 

Now that it’s safe for us to oper­ate again, we are determ­ined to help coun­ter­act and over­come these issues. 

With rising costs of liv­ing, it is now more import­ant than ever to keep Seable hol­i­days afford­able. The funds raised through our cam­paign will help to bring down these costs for those in need of extra support. 

For each des­tin­a­tion we train loc­al guides as chap­er­ones to help our cli­ents through­out their trip. Chap­er­ones provide com­pany, guid­ance, and all round assist­ance. Without our chap­er­ones, Seable simply can­not exist. 

Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, we were unable to provide work for our chap­er­ones. Cam­paign dona­tions will help rebuild our team, relaunch our des­tin­a­tions, and cov­er the costs of chap­er­one train­ing which would oth­er­wise make hol­i­days unaf­ford­able to clients. 

» Click here to contribute to Seable’s crowdfunding campaign «

Seable’s origin story 

Twenty years ago, our founder’s fath­er, Car­melo, was hit by a drunk driver. 

While in hos­pit­al, he befriended a young man named Mar­tino who had suffered a sim­il­ar acci­dent. As Car­melo recovered the use of his legs, Mar­tino sadly did not. 

Dur­ing their con­ver­sa­tions in hos­pit­al Mar­tino expressed his desire to try scuba diving. At that time access­ible scuba diving was not avail­able in Sicily. 

Being an exper­i­enced diver, Car­melo took it upon him­self to teach Mar­tino, who went on to receive a Guin­ness World Record as the first para­ple­gic man to dive 59 metres. 

Togeth­er Car­melo and Mar­tino star­ted a char­ity that focuses on rehab­il­it­a­tion through sports. They have helped many people over the years, includ­ing visu­ally impaired Bene­detta Spamp­inato, who has since achieved a World Record for deep sea diving.

This work inspired Seable founder Dami­ano La Rocca to explore the top­ic of access­ible tour­ism. He dis­covered that hol­i­days for the visu­ally impaired were not widely catered for and set out to change this. 

Whilst study­ing at Lon­don Met­ro­pol­it­an Uni­ver­sity Dami­ano became involved with Accel­er­at­or, the Uni­versity’s incub­at­or, which offers stu­dents guid­ance for turn­ing their ideas into business. 

Dami­ano used the ment­or­ing he received to start Seable Holidays. 

Dami­ano is now a mem­ber of the Office for Dis­ab­il­ity Issues at the Dis­ab­il­ity Region­al Stake­hold­er Net­work, and a mem­ber of the Access­ible European Net­work of Access­ible Tour­ism. His work has been recog­nised by vari­ous organ­isa­tions for deliv­er­ing and scal­ing social impact with ground-break­ing sup­port to the visu­ally impaired. 

» Click here to contribute to Seable’s crowdfunding campaign «

Seable’s social impact 

Seable car­ries out social impact reports to identi­fy changes in our cli­ents well­being as a con­sequence of their Seable holiday: 

• 100% of people trav­el­ling alone for the first time returned with increased con­fid­ence and independence;
• 60% made new friends; and
• 40% star­ted a new hobby, joined a sports team, and/or gen­er­ally star­ted liv­ing more independently. 

The res­ults have shown that par­ti­cipants felt able to achieve import­ant per­son­al goals and returned home with increased con­fid­ence in themselves. 

Most import­antly, they feel part of an empowered community.

» Click here to contribute to Seable’s crowdfunding campaign «

Fea­tured image (top of post): Seable tour group on Lan­zarote, Canary Islands, Spain.