How to guide a blind person in the street
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If you wish to guide a blind person in the street or in a closed place, you should do it in the following way:
- 1. Stand to one side and half a step ahead of the blind person you wish to guide.
- 2. Then, make him or her take your arm, just above the elbow. You can simply say: “Take my arm”.
- 3. Then walk at a natural pace.
This is the standard technique. However, it can be modified in the three following cases:
a. If the blind person you wish to guide is taller than you, he or she can take your shoulder before you start walking.
b. The safest way to guide a blind child is to have him or her hold your wrist.
c. If you are going to walk a very long distance or if the blind person needs some additional kind of help to walk, bend your forearm, so that it is parallel to the ground, and the blind person will be able to rest his or her hand lightly on your forearm.
You can use any of these ways of guiding; what matters in every instance is that you walk slightly ahead of the blind person. Thus, for example, if you are going up a step, you must be the first to do it. In this way, the blind person will feel that you have ascended slightly and he will know that he must also go up the step without necessarily being told.