A group from the Porto delegation of ACAPO – the Portuguese association for the blind and partially sighted – has broken new ground in the Douro by harvesting grapes.
An exercise in giving the visually-impaired new experiences, vineyard owner Luís Barros told Lusa: “It is the first time we have had blind people harvesting grapes. They cut 20 bunches in 45 minutes and no-one cut their fingers”.
President of the delegation, Paula Costa, explained: “We refuse to be left out, to stay at home. We are not “the poor blind people”. We are people with reduced mobility and there are things that we don’t do, but we try all the time to be autonomous and we do many activities”.
The group has already tried jeep driving, explains Lusa, and after the grape harvest, the next challenge will be taking to the water in a kayak.
