Project Touch Tokyo: Felt Not Seen | 「觸感東京：用心感受，而非眼見」– Inspire Inclusive Travel for All 🏔️✨

🎯 My Mission

"I believe in a world designed for everyone. By sharing my travel journey as a visually impaired traveler, supported by my incredible friends, my mission is to foster deep empathy and champion universal design; ensuring equal access and full enjoyment across physical environments, transportation, information, and public life."

📌 Project Objectives & Key Deliverables

A Collaborative Initiative by Catherine So & Beyond Vision International (BVI)

This project brings together Catherine’s lived experiences as an adaptive traveler and BVI’s expertise in tactile design to bridge inclusive design and community education. Audiences move past passive sympathy to active empathy, learning how the visually impaired (VI) community interacts with, interprets, and imagines the physical world.

Timeline & Key Milestones

• August 23 – 30, 2026: Catherine’s first visit to Tokyo, summiting Mount Fuji (3,776m) and navigating iconic sites using multi-sensory tactile diagrams.
• September – December 2026: Interactive Inclusive Sharing Sessions across universities, corporations, and NGOs.

Key Deliverables

1. Mount Fuji & Tokyo Tactile Guidebook: Catherine is collaborating directly with Beyond Vision International (BVI) to co-create revolutionary tactile travel guides. Featuring raised, textured layouts of iconic landmarks such as Tokyo Tower, Mount Fuji, Senso-ji, and Shibuya Crossing. The guidebook lets low-vision and blind travelers feel intricate architectural details firsthand. Spoken descriptions alone often leave VI travelers as passive listeners with vague mental images; these tactile diagrams bridge that gap, turning abstract words into tangible reality and empowering travelers to explore with confidence.
2. Campus & Corporate Inclusive Sharing Sessions: Interactive sessions demonstrating how low-vision travelers and sighted companions navigate landmarks using tactile tools and inclusive communication, while sharing Catherine's emotional journey of navigating gradual sight loss, embracing vulnerability and rebuilding self-worth.
3. Barclays 1:1 Matched Funding: To power this ongoing initiative, the first HK$10,500 raised will be matched 1:1 by Barclays, instantly doubling your impact to HK$21,000! This matched support directly fuels our guidebook production, material prototyping, and workshop delivery.

🌓 Facing the Shadow & Exploring the World

Many of you have witnessed my gradual loss of vision over the past few years. When I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, a progressive eye condition that stripped away my peripheral vision, I was confronted with quiet grief and the fear of an uncertain future.

Losing my sight brought immense fear, but it also brought a powerful realization: having fear simply makes me human, and accepting my limitations is where true strength begins. Instead of letting fear take over, I chose to view it as a powerful reminder to turn inward and focus on my own growth. I dedicated myself to embrace life’s fullness, rebuilding self-worth and pursuing my passion for world travel. Today, that determination has carried me across 40 countries.

My journey is a testament to trust, vulnerability, and human connection: navigating central vision by day with a white cane, and leaning on the steady arms of trusted friends, local guides, and kind strangers when night falls. In August 2026, I take my next extraordinary leap of faith: climbing 3,776 meters to summit Mount Fuji for sunrise — proving that physical limitations cannot dim the human spirit and that the world is meant to be felt with our whole soul.

🏫 Leaving a Legacy: Sharing My Light

Upon returning, Catherine and BVI will partner with universities and corporations between September and December 2026 to bring these tactile tools directly to the community through interactive sessions:

• Real-World Travel Insights: Demonstrating how low-vision travelers and sighted guides navigate landmarks together using tactile diagrams.
• Fireside Dialogues & Workshops: Open discussions on the emotional nuances of gradual sight loss, cane adaptation, interdependent guiding, and rebuilding self-confidence. Includes 1-hour staff sessions and interactive workshops.
• Tactile Experiential Sessions: Hands-on exploration of the Mount Fuji & Tokyo Tactile Guidebook to break down social barriers and reimagine visual interpretation.

💝 Stand With Us: Double Your Impact (11 Aug – 11 Sep)

This collaborative crowdfunding campaign powers Catherine and BVI’s joint project—directly funding the technical design, prototyping, and production of our tactile guidebooks, as well as our campus and corporate educational sessions.

• Donation Target & Impact: We aim to raise at least HK$65,000 for this project. The first HK$10,500 raised will be matched 1:1 by Barclays, effectively doubling those initial contributions to HK$21,000! Every dollar raised beyond that will allow us to produce tactile guidebooks and expand our reach across schools and corporate inclusive education initiatives (the more we raise, the greater the impact we can create!).
• Share: Help us amplify this movement across your personal and professional networks.
• Follow the Journey: Follow training updates and climb progress on Instagram: @Gutdin | @bvp_hk

Thank you for standing with us to champion inclusive travel and proving that the world’s beauty is meant to be felt, not just seen. 🌍❤️

Organised by: Catherine So x Beyond Vision International (BVI) (Registered Non-Profit)