Fight for Sight: our 2024 year in review

Reflecting on the past year at Fight for Sight. What a year it has been.

Earlier in the year, we unveiled our new brand. The bold and distinctive logo represents the pupil and an eyelid below. It’s also symbolic of a person with arms upstretched.

The logo represents our vision to: Save Sight. Change Lives.

The vision stems from the origin story that united Fight for Sight and Vision Foundation, the charities we're forged from.

We recognised that when someone experiences a vision loss diagnosis, they face two urgent, profound questions. Can this be stopped? How do I live my life?

As one, we can and will answer both questions positively.

The charities have a 160-year history of funding vision loss research and delivering social change.

Fabulous fundraisers enable what we do

The people who support us, from individuals to Trust and Foundations, companies and more, make this possible. We started the year with some fantastic supporters running through the streets of London in the iconic London Marathon, including members of the Tommy Salisbury Fund, who are fundraising for Choroideremia.

Also pounding the streets was Jim Pomeroy, who shared his story with us.

Doing the marathon isn’t for everyone, and we offer multiple ways to Fundraise for Us. Elizabeth Maxwell, featured in this year’s Christmas campaign, has been baking cakes and making chutneys to sell at Christmas Fayres for decades.

Investing in scientific research and social change

We invest the money raised in brilliant minds and bright ideas, putting change in sight for everyone impacted by vision loss. It’s our mission statement – but what does it mean?

Investing in scientific research

Well, we invest in good science and good scientists.

For example, our Zakarian Awards enable clinicians to 'buy’ time out from the clinic to focus on research. The awards help young ophthalmologists progress in their careers and bring the valuable perspective of those who work with patients into the research field.

We fund them with the Royal College of Ophthalmologists (RCOphth).

Our research strategy is to invest across the patient pathway, exploring how to better “understand, diagnose, prevent and treat vision loss”. 

Spotlighting some of this work, we ran a free webinar with Dr Gavin Arno, who has advanced our understanding of the genetics of Inherited retinal disease. Missed it? Check out the recording.

In January, our webinar focuses on prevention. Dr Ameenat Lola Solebo will join us to discuss her work tackling complications that lead to blindness in children. Her work will create a more straightforward test, which could mean earlier diagnosis for complications of childhood uveitis.

The year finished with a crescendo when HRH the Duchess of Edinburgh visited UCL to learn about cutting-edge genetics research funded by Fight for Sight into genetic eye diseases.

Investing in social change

We’re also funding research that informs our work in social change. Earlier this year, we released research exploring how people who are blind and vision impaired experience loneliness and isolation. We discovered that people with vision loss are three times more likely to feel lonely and isolated. That’s a stark statistic. Equally stark were the quotes we gathered from our in-depth interviews – one person, for example, said, “You don’t live, you exist.”

The work we fund embraces the entirety of people’s lives. For instance, we funded MyVision Oxfordshire, which introduced green walks for people who are blind and vision impaired. Being in nature improves mental health, and walking with others is a huge confidence booster.

One woman participant joined a group and caught a bus to go further afield. By doing so as part of the group, she regained the confidence to take a bus journey alone – something she hadn’t done for several years.

The CEO of MyVision Oxfordshire, Mark Upton, explained more in a FREE webinar for Fight for Sight: you can watch the webinar recording to discover more.

We’re also funding Metro Blind Sport, which encourages people who are blind and vision impaired to join in sporting activities.

The impact of the scientific research and social change we fund

This year, we also witnessed the impact of earlier work we’ve funded. For instance, researchers funded by us believe they may be able to deliver special glasses to support people impacted by keratoconus while another study is exploring the role of Vitamin B3 in supporting people with glaucoma. 

Likewise, we’re seeing the impact of past social change funding. Notably, we funded research into people who are blind and vision impaired who are victims and survivors of domestic abuse. Two of the charities we funded as an outcome of that report have since published a DVA toolkit for refuges, which ensures that refuges are accessible for people who are blind and vision impaired.

That work also inspired an audio drama by Extant.

Working in partnership to: Save Sight. Change Lives

Partnership is critical in everything we do – in fact, it’s one of the core values of the new brand. We’re working as a member of The Eyes Have It, funded by Roche, to influence government and decision-makers. In May 2024, TEHI published a report to lay the foundations for the future of eye health care in England.   

Elsewhere, we are part of a funding coalition behind a report by PA Consulting, which makes a clear economic case for investing in primary eye care.

We were also proud to attend, participate in, and be a sponsor of the 2024 Visionary Conference, which convenes and celebrates organisations across the vision loss sector. Visionary is the national membership organisation for local sight loss charities and aims to help empower these vital charities to be their best.

Our funding aims to support a sector that’s impactful and sustainable, and we were also proud to launch our Capacity Building Fund to support charities as the calendar year ends.

Relaunching our preloved stores

Continuing the rebrand, our fleet of preloved shops across London is next in line for a bold new look. You can drop off a bag of clothes and enter a prize draw with a chance to win £100 to spend in one of them.

As we look towards 2025, the work will continue, but for now, we wish you Seasons Greetings and a Happy New Year.

Find out more 

• Passion and purpose combine in our new brand.
• Discover more about our history
• Tommy Salisbury’s story: Running towards a Brighter Future
• Jim Pomeroy: Talking about the difficult stuff helps.
• Find out more about the Zakarian Awards.
• Our scientific research strategy.
• Read our report on Loneliness and Isolation.