About Us

If you’ve landed here, you probably want to know more about us. It’s good to see you!

Sight Life (known as Cardiff Institute for the Blind until October 2019) provides a wide range of local services so that blind and partially sighted people across the majority of South Wales can enjoy independent, active, social and fulfilled lives. Originally established in 1865, we are one of the oldest charities in Wales. We are honoured to have rugby legend Sir Gareth Edwards, CBE, as our President and actress Ruth Madoc as our patron.

Who are we?

Sight Life is small but mighty! We have nine members of staff and over 140 volunteers, many of whom have a sight condition. Our offices are located in Cardiff and Swansea but much of our work takes place in the community. We often carry out home visits to those who have recently developed a sight condition that is impacting on their lives. Because of contracts or the funding we have from local authorities, health boards and the National Lottery Community Fund, we mainly focus on delivering direct services in Cardiff, Swansea, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Neath and Port Talbot. We are able to provide advice to people outside those areas via telephone, via our quarterly newsletter or through our social media channels.

We understand that living with sight loss can be incredibly challenging. However, with our support, we know that blind and partially sighted people can continue living the lives they want. That can be something as simple as still being able to enjoy books and television. It can be something essential like being able to safely cook meals and go shopping. It can be something important like being able to stay in work. Or it can be something personal like being able to continue doing sport and leisure activities.

What do we want to do?

Our aim is to support blind and partially sighted people to maintain or improve their physical and emotional well-being by providing advice and support to help them exercise, manage medication, eat healthily, increase confidence and self-esteem, give them a sense of security and future, and reduce incidents of falls and accidents. We want blind and partially sighted people to enjoy independent and fulfilled lives by helping them to be part of a community, to take part in social and leisure activities, get out and about more, to be able and willing to shop alone, to visit friends, be digitally included, have more income and be able to manage money, to volunteer or work, and to take part in lifelong learning.

At our headquarters in Jones Court, Womanby Street, Cardiff, we have a Resource Centre which stocks products. We also have an IT training suite and an Activity Room, which is where many of our Cardiff clubs meet. You can also find many of the Cardiff team here. They can provide you with information, advice and a listening ear if you need one. Our Eye Clinic Liaison Officer is based at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. She is there to support people who are diagnosed with a significant sight condition.

How are we run?

Sight Life (Cardiff Institute for the Blind) is a charity and a limited company. Our current board of trustees are John Sanders (Chair), Elin Haf Edwards, James Askey, Christopher Reddington, Susan Sullivan, Carol Jones, Suzanne Petterson and Nigel Blewitt. If you would like to contact a member of the board or are interested in becoming a trustee, please call 029 2039 8900 and ask for Nicola Llewellyn or email [email protected]. We are keen to increase the diversity of our board.

More clicks!

List of our services. The services we offer do vary slightly in each area we work in. To find out more about the difference we can make to people’s lives see Sight Life’s impact.

Sight Life current strategy

We take the safeguarding of service users, volunteers and staff very seriously. Safeguarding policies and procedures

Our latest Annual Report and Accounts is available at the Charity Commission website.

Sight Life is a member of the RNIB Group and our staff and volunteers work closely with RNIB Cymru, local authorities and other public and Third Sector organisations to try and ensure blind and partially sighted people get the support they need.

Please note: you may still find some references to Cardiff Institute for the Blind or CIB throughout this website, particularly in quotes from our service users. Cardiff Institute for the Blind has been retained as our registered charity and company name for the time being, to make the transition to our new name of Sight Life easier both from an operational and a fundraising perspective.