Our history

What do footballer Vinnie Jones, Blondie’s guitarist and the Golden Gate Bridge all have in common? They all share their birthday with Sightsavers!

It was on 5 Jan 1950 that the doors of the British Empire Society for the Blind, as we were known back then, opened for the first time.

It was when Clement Attlee was Prime Minister of a Labour government that was losing popularity, due to public grumblings about rationing no longer being necessary five years after the Second World War. King George the Sixth was still in power (Queen Elizabeth was to be crowned three years later). You're Breaking My Heart by the Ink Spots topped the air waves, when popular songs were measured by sales of sheet music, before the first British record sales chart appeared.

Groundbreaking survey

As well as being the decade of teddy boys, petticoats and rock and roll, the 1950s were when Sightsavers made our first groundbreaking achievement in the fight against avoidable blindness. In 1953 a survey was conducted by Dr Freddie Rodger in West Africa. It showed that the majority of blindness was actually preventable, and led to a pioneering disease control programme for onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness.

In the 1960s the first mobile eye units were launched, where trained staff used Land Rovers to travel thousands of miles to treat eye conditions in remote communities in Uganda and Kenya. But by the 1970s it was clear that it was going to be much more effective to train local in-country staff to provide eye care, and the first surgical training programme was set up in Bangladesh.

Amazing achievements!

Working in this way, with our partners we have treated over 200 million people for blinding and potentially blinding conditions, and carried out over seven million operations to restore sight.

We have had plenty more achievements to celebrate during our sixty year history, such as our support for the unique Health for Peace initiative, whereby four West African governments have come together to encourage peace through a cross-border approach to tackling health problems. We also launched our Bangladesh Childhood Cataract Campaign: pledging to track down and restore the sight of every child in the country suffering from cataract. Sightsavers also had a role to play in getting the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ratified in many of the countries where we work. This will result in legislation changes that reflect equal rights and opportunities for people with disabilities such as blindness.

Going forward

In 2009 we decided to change the way we work in order to bring about long-term change, and our new strategy was launched. We are still supporting our partners to carry out essential eye care and rehabilitation work, but are increasing our efforts to influence governments. Our projects are small-scale models that demonstrate the best practices possible. We hope in the future they will be replicated by governments in the countries we work – with any luck in another sixty years our job will be done and we won’t be needed!