Hello my name's Andrea Begley and I'mthe ambassador for RNIB

Royal National Institute of Blind peoplein Northern Ireland.

I first developed my eye condition glaucomaat the age of 5since then I've had around 23 operationswith the result that I've now got around10 percent visionwhich on a day-to-day basis means that

I can make out some outlines of thingssome colours but nothing in any detailand I use a white cane to get around.

In the early days my sight losswasn't too extreme I was able to uselarge print in schoolparticularly in primary school but as I got

older my sight lossgot worse and I found that I had to useother forms ofequipment such as talking software oralso having the assistanceof a classroom assistant in school.

I suppose music has beena massive part in my life from really

an early age, probably before I was ableto talk I was singing I thinkwell according to my family anyway andprobably I never thought about making musica careeror a job as such because I always really saw itas something fun and a hobby butwhen I got to my early twenties Istarted doing some song writing andgigging in Belfast and just in the eveningtimesafter work.

I think for me the whole Voiceexperience was just a real opportunity to do more with music and open a lotof doors that probably would neverhave been open to me without it.

I've had the chance totravel and perform in Chinaand do a lot more concerts andget an album out as well and probably

those are things I might never have beenable to do without the show.

I'm absolutely delighted to be theambassador for RNIB in Northern IrelandI've always had a huge interestand passion for issues around sight lossand I think there are a huge number of

barriers and hurdles out there that peoplewith sight loss still experience.

In recent times I've been a lot more involvedwith the Children and Family services teamin RNIB which has been a great pleasure for

me becauseI suppose growing up as a young person with

sight loss myself I know first handwhat it's like and some of the barriers andhurdles that you can face.

So I've been really excited to get involvedin some of the music projects andsome of the other awareness raising projectsthat the Children and Family serviceshave been undertaking in the past few months.

There are nearly two and a half thousand childrenand young people who have beenaffected by sight loss in Northern Ireland.

In 2014 over 100 new families contacted ourChildren and Family servicesfor emotional and practical support.

If you want to seek emotional or practicalsupport from RNIByou can visit their website at