Established in 1834, BlindAid is London’s oldest charity exclusively offering community-based and free services to over 1400 blind and visually impaired (VI) people living across 12 inner London boroughs each year. Our small charity supports a particularly hidden demographic; isolated, mainly older people with sight loss. BlindAid services improve quality of life for vulnerable Londoners with a VI by offering individualised, practical, and emotional support.
We know that 80% of BlindAid’s beneficiaries live completely alone, with no contact with anyone else for at least 5 days each week. When referred, most beneficiaries are mostly experiencing low mood, have low levels of self-confidence/independence, are living on benefits/low income and have limited/no digital skills. 
With our 20 full time staff and 120 volunteers (all of whom hold enhanced DBS certificates) we run three main services:
The Sight Support Service is an outreach service, offering emotional and practical support to around 1200 VI beneficiaries each year via a combination of regular calls and visits. The hybrid nature of this support was designed in conjunction with our beneficiaries during focus groups in 2020/21 and allowed us to expand our service capacity by 40% compared to pre-pandemic numbers, but even so the increasing level of demand in the community is resulting in waiting lists for this service in all of our boroughs.
Our Camden Community Project offers 16 weeks of free classes to VI people from across London in accessible IT, safe cooking/healthy eating, yoga, creative writing and art (topics identified in consultation with beneficiaries).
Share London is a volunteer-based social outing service, which matches a network of volunteers with over 150 VI people who want to spend time in their local community but lack the confidence and/or navigation skills to do so independently. Matches focus on shared interests, e.g. sport, music, film etc. and, after a facilitated introduction, volunteers meet with beneficiaries on a regular basis for various activities from a coffee in a local café to trips to the cinema/theatre/concerts.
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