Thanks to you, in 2022…
It’s been another amazing year where we’ve been able to protect sight, fight disease and empower people with disabilities. Here, we share our highlights, all made possible by you.
January
Professor Chris Whitty, who has been a trustee on our board since 2017, was knighted in the New Year Honours for his role in tackling COVID-19. Sir Chris is the chief medical officer for England and regularly briefed the nation in televised press conferences during the pandemic.
How we congratulated Sir Chris
January
Read our highlights from around the world
February
Sightsavers Ireland’s online workshop Put Us in the Picture won Not-for-Profit Website of the Year at Ireland’s National Digital Awards. The interactive workshop teaches schoolchildren about inclusive education and disability, helping them to learn what life is like in low income countries. Read about the award
February
March
Two of Sightsavers’ short films won awards at the fifth Charity Film Awards, which commend the best films in the sector. Our campaign film ‘A message from students in Sierra Leone’ won gold in its category and our film celebrating trachoma elimination in The Gambia won a bronze award. Read the story and watch our award-winning films
March
How we celebrated the day
April
As part of a new partnership, Sightsavers gave International Disability Alliance (IDA) an unrestricted grant of US$1 million to help advance disability rights worldwide. The grant will enable IDA to increase its advocacy work, provide technical assistance and support people with disabilities.
Read about our work with IDA
April
Read about the collection
May
On Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we shared tips on how to make social media posts accessible. Accessibility and inclusion are at the heart of our work, and we aim to make everything we produce in print and online accessible to as many people as possible.
Read our Instagram post for accessibility tips
May
June
At the Kigali Summit in Rwanda, Sightsavers’ CEO Caroline Harper pledged to invest US$25 million to help beat neglected tropical diseases in Africa over the next four years. The funding will help to protect millions of people from diseases like trachoma, river blindness and intestinal worms.
Read about the pledge
June
Read about Getty’s nomination
July
We launched a short film about corporate partnerships that shares how important corporate partners are to Sightsavers and how organisations and companies can support our work to protect sight, tackle neglected tropical diseases and fight for disability rights.
Find out more about our corporate partnerships
July
Read our past appeals
August
Lady Jean Wilson, who co-founded Sightsavers with her husband Sir John Wilson, celebrated her 100th birthday in August. Lady Jean and Sir John started Sightsavers in 1950 to help advance the rights of people with sight loss and remove the stigma around being blind in Africa.
How we celebrated on Instagram
September
September
Malawi celebrated the announcement that trachoma has been eliminated as a public health problem. Sightsavers helped to launch the Malawi Trachoma Elimination Programme in 2014. Now 9.5 million people in the country are no longer at risk of losing their sight to the disease.
Read the news story
October
Learn about the event
October
Sightsavers director of neglected tropical diseases Simon Bush received a lifetime achievement award for his work to fight river blindness. Simon is the second person to receive the accolade, which was presented to him by the non-profit organisation United Front Against Riverblindness.
Read about Simon’s achievement
November
Join our winter appeal
November
On 29 November, our generous supporters raised more than £70,000 during our Giving Tuesday appeal. Donations made on Giving Tuesday are matched and doubled so that individual gifts go twice as far, helping to treat many more schoolchildren like Zill, who featured in our appeal.
About the Giving Tuesday appeal
December
Read about Tropical Data
December
Sightsavers ended the year on another high by winning a Zero Project award for an inclusion project in Cameroon and Senegal. In collaboration with our partners, the project empowers people with disabilities in local governance and leadership by increasing access and participation.
More about the award
What else has Sightsavers achieved in the past year?
Read our news and blogsOur latest stories
Sightsavers responds to report into FCDO’s work on disability inclusion
A report on the UK government’s development strategy and how inclusive it is of people with disabilities was published on Thursday 4 April.
Sightsavers’ Accelerate programme gets US$36.5 million funding boost to banish trachoma
The extra funding from international donors will help speed up the elimination of trachoma in Africa by expanding and extending the programme.
Sightsavers at the CIES education conference 2024
We're attending the conference in Miami on 6-14 March to share our expertise, engage with the education community and explore how we can transform inclusive education.
