FEATURE17 January 2022

A clear vision: Insight at the RNIB

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Charities Features Impact Wellbeing

Insights and research are helping sight-loss charity the Royal National Institute of Blind People understand the needs of its beneficiaries and tackle the thorny problem of public perception. By Liam Kay.

Macro photo of an eye

What comes to mind when you think of a blind person? There are countless stereotypes many people have, most of which do not represent the reality of living with sight loss. Campaigning organisations have sought to address this issue and combat misguided views of life as a blind or partially sighted person.

For more than 150 years, the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) has sought to help blind and partially sighted people lead as full a life as possible, and aims to counteract false perceptions of what life is like with sight loss.

The charity has embraced the second part of its purpose fully in recent years, embarking on a rebrand and shift in focus in 2018, with a resulting emphasis on fighting misconceptions and stereotypes of blind and partially sighted people. It dropped some of its services as it looked at how it could make the biggest difference to people with sight loss across the country.

“A lot of ...