My name is Louis.     I am 19 years old.     I am from Bradford.                                                  I love Doctor Who.     I am blind.

I have taken on the challenge of making the amazing and fantastical images of Doctor Who accessible to blind and partially sighted people like me.  I am working with a great charity who can help me to achieve this - Living Paintings, but they don't have the money for this project and that's why I'm launching my campaign.  

I've known Living Paintings since I was 5 years old and they helped me when I was learning Braille by making it possible for me to 'see' in my own way the all-important illustrations in picture books like one of my favourites, The Slightly Annoying Elephant by David Walliams. Since then, their audio and tactile books have opened my eyes to a world of information and adventure.

I became completely blind at 18 months old, due to Neuroblastoma, a type of children’s cancer. Despite this, my parents were always keen for me to have all the same opportunities as sighted kids, in my opinion, this was the best thing they could’ve done for me. I believe that, while people like me who are blind are unfortunately, physically different in that we can’t see, beyond that we are no different at all and should be given access to as close to everything that sighted people have access to as possible.  

I’ve been a big fan of the show Doctor Who since I was young, but I have yet to fully meet the weird and wonderful characters, aliens, monsters and devices from the show because I can't see them.  So I asked if Living Paintings would consider creating a Doctor Who Touch to See book which would help blind people like me enjoy and engage with the show on a whole new level.  They said 'yes' and really like my idea but they don't have the money to do it.  So here I am, asking you to help me make this possible.

If I could sum up what I think is the most important thing about my campaign I would ask a sighted person to just imagine – close your eyes and now imagine you can’t open them again.  This is how it is and now you want to read a book or watch Doctor Who. How are you going to do that? How important is reading a book to you?  As a sighted person how would you feel if that was taken away from you and you couldn’t read anymore?   Then you discover Living Paintings special Touch to See books are full of characters you’ve heard about and imagined all the time, they’ve been on TV, you’ve listened to the audio books, you may have had the books read to you and you never quite understood what they looked like and now, because of Living Paintings you do. 

The Doctor Who people have said we can go ahead with the Touch to See books so now I need your help to raise the money.  Here's Liz, the Publishing Manager at Living Paintings to tell you more about how the money will be spent:                     

"To have the possibility of creating the worlds only tactile and audio book series about Doctor Who for blind people is incredibly exciting. The universe of Doctor Who is an immensely visual extravaganza that we will capture and share with blind people. Through evocative tactile pictures coupled with atmospheric and descriptive audio guides, plus music and sound effects - we’ll bring the spectacle of Doctor Who to life, hopefully with a little help from some of the Doctors, their companions and adversaries too!  If Louis raises the money we plan to write and produce three Touch to See book titles each with lots of copies to go into our Library and be sent out across the UK to blind youngsters like Louis completely free of charge.  Each title will depict five Doctors plus key characters and their stories.  There have been 13 Doctors so far so there will be plenty of space for lots of exciting added extras. Fingers crossed Louis succeeds and we can make this happen.”                                                                            

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A donation of:

£10 will pay for ten raised, tactile pictures to go into one of the Doctor Who Touch to See books

£30 will pay for a set of colour images to go into one of the books so that a sighted person can share them too - my dad will love that!  

£80 will pay for 10 USB memory sticks to carry the audio soundtracks, images etc for one book - I can then play them through my computer but they do CD's too

£150 will pay for one full copy of one Touch to See book

£250 will pay for the recording of the audio soundtrack with sound effects and music for one book - hopefully by someone famous!

£500 will pay for master moulds for two Doctors plus additional characters to produce the raised, tactile images from

£5,000 will pay for one entire Touch to See book including all raised, tactile images and audio soundtracks with multiple copies: from conception to publishing to the Library for distribution to blind youngsters across the UK.  

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                                                                                                                                                                               I really hope you like my idea and are able to support this appeal and help bring Doctor Who to life for me and other blind and partially sighted people for years to come.  Thank you.

There is also a page on the Living Paintings website about my campaign which you can see here.

This is my own personal activity and I'm raising funds for Living Paintings, not BBC Studios or Doctor Who.

To find out more about the work of Living Paintings visit www.livingpaintings.org