Berkshire sight loss charity receives £15,000 National Lottery boost to expand COVID-19 response

Berkshire Vision, a charity providing practical and friendly support and activities to visually impaired people in the county, has received a National Lottery funding boost of almost £15,000 to support its COVID-19 response.

Through its Connect 2020 project, Berkshire Vision, which was established in 1910, aims to reduce isolation and loneliness and keep people with sight-loss connected throughout the pandemic. The project helps local people stay in touch with family, friends and peers, stay active whilst at home and improve physical and mental wellbeing during these difficult times.

The funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK, will allow Berkshire Vision to continue training its volunteers to make regular support calls to its members, providing a welfare check along with a friendly catch-up, as well as updated information about Government advice and signposting to other services where needed. By 4^th July over 4,200 phone calls had been made totalling over 81,000 minutes of conversations with members. A staggering 92% of Berkshire Vision’s members said that the phone calls made a positive difference to their mood.

Eleonore is a volunteer with Berkshire Vision: “I started volunteering with Berkshire Vision when my company put an appeal out at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. I thought it was a great way of giving time back to the community and play my part in helping people that would be most affected. But volunteering is more than just giving back, it helped me develop a wonderful friendship and taught me lots about myself too.”

The National Lottery funding will also make sure the vital transport service to critical eye appointments, providing a door-to-door minibus service to ensure no one misses any appointments and important injections, continues to run. This service was recognised on 14^th July, when Berkshire Vision received an Award for Excellence from the Macular Service at the Royal Berkshire Hospital for transporting patients to their eye injections through lockdown.

For people with visual impairments, many of whom live alone, the last few months have been especially hard, with little or no social contact and heightened anxieties about the outside world. Relatively simple outings, such as going to the shops, have been made more difficult due to the changes in systems, such as two-metre markers they cannot see, less staff on-hand to help and signs limiting number of purchases they cannot read.

An increase in coronavirus-related scams have also left people with visual impairments vulnerable to exploitation. Volunteer befrienders at Berkshire Vision use their calls to make sure people understand current advice and have their basic needs met, as well as monitoring for risks or safeguarding issues.

Berkshire Vision is also using the new National Lottery funding to provide remote activities every day, designed to be accessible through phone contact, rather than needing a computer or the internet. Activities are specifically designed to improve physical and mental wellbeing, and include seated exercise, wellbeing tips, mindfulness, coffee mornings, quizzes, appropriate table-top games and an audio-book club.

Laura Mitchell, Chief Executive Officer of Berkshire Vision, said: “The National Lottery funding has been vital for enabling us to support our blind and partially sighted members through this difficult time by rapidly adapting our services to meet their changing needs in a very different way.”

Helen Bushell, Head of Funding for the South of England at The National Lottery Community Fund, said: “The National Lottery is playing a critical role in supporting people, projects and communities during these challenging times. Groups such as Berkshire Vision are making an amazing contribution to the community-level response. We’re incredibly grateful for their dedication and the hard work of thousands of projects across the UK – we’re humbled by their efforts and delighted that our funding is able to help.”

Charities and community groups across the South East have been awarded over £2million of National Lottery funding since the beginning of June – providing crucial support to overcome challenges caused by the COVID-19 crisis. Over £21 million of National Lottery funding awarded to more than 750 projects in England since the beginning of June.

The National Lottery Community Fund distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes. Last year we awarded over half a billion pounds (£588.2 million) of life-changing funding to communities across the UK, and supported over 14,000 projects to turn their great ideas into reality and make a difference in their communities.

Across all of the National Lottery distributors, £600 million has been made available to support communities throughout the UK during the coronavirus outbreak. Thanks to National Lottery players, £30 million is raised every week for the UK’s good causes, and £41 billion has been distributed to 565,000 good causes across the UK since 1994.

To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk