A Tribute to Dan Roche (1976 – 2023)

8 March 2023

It is with great sadness that we announce the untimely death of one our most valued and dedicated volunteers, Daniel Roche, aged just 46. Cardiff born and bred, Dan was one of our longest serving volunteers having spent 27 years passing on his IT expertise to members at Sight Life and more recently assisting with our fundraising efforts. 

Dan was born with the genetic condition Alstron syndrome, making him partially sighted until he was registered blind at the age of 9. The syndrome did not only affect his vision but later led him to have a kidney transplant in 2005 and a pancreatic transplant a year later. But Dan did not let this affect his day-to-day living and in 1998 he became a Sight Life member and after joining our IT training group, he immediately became a volunteer. 

In addition to assisting other blind and partially sighted members in our IT training centre, Dan would often help with proofreading Braille documents and writing user guides for members. He also checked websites to make sure they were accessible and helped to update our ‘Finding Your Feet’ information booklets which were designed to help blind and partially sighted people live independent lives. 

Dan continued as a dedicated and hard-working volunteer in recent years and had been supporting our Fundraising Manager with fundraising research tasks remotely over the last year or so. He did some excellent work researching new funding prospects for us, which will hopefully generate lots more funds for Sight Life in the years ahead.  

Dan also supported us with testing accessibility on new fundraising platforms. Dan was incredibly dedicated to our cause and went above and beyond in all the work he did, always going the extra mile to make sure we had all the information we needed to try and secure much needed funding for our charity and was a pleasure to work with. 

We are so grateful to Dan and his family for all their continued support over the years. Dan was such a lovely, kind, and gentle man with a great sense of humour. He will be very sadly missed by all of us at Sight Life. 

About Sight Life  

Sight Life (formerly Cardiff Institute for the Blind) supports people who are blind or partially sighted in south Wales. In 2020/21 we helped more than 3,000 people in Cardiff, Swansea, RCT (Rhondda Cynon Taf), Neath and Port Talbot.  

We provide statutory services to people with sight loss on behalf of the local Councils in Cardiff and Swansea.  

In cooperation with the NHS, we provide a support service (ECLO: Eye Clinic Liaison Officer) for patients newly diagnosed with sight loss in University Hospital of Wales (UHW “The Heath”) in Cardiff.  

Our aims are to ensure that people with sight loss can take part in all aspects of society, including work and leisure.  

We offer a range of training, clubs and activities including audio-described theatre trips, confidence building, cooking, drama, employment support, fitness, gardening, IT, music, photography, rambling and yoga to people with sight loss.  

Established in 1865, we are one of Wales’ oldest charities. In spring 2022 we returned to being an independent charity after being part of the UK wide RNIB Group since 2009.  

We have approximately a dozen staff and annual income in the region of £440,000 from statutory contracts, grants, trusts, The National Lottery, donations and legacies.  

Sight Life changed its name from Cardiff Institute for the Blind in 2019 to reflect the fact that we work beyond Cardiff, including Swansea and RCT (Rhondda Cynon Taf). The name change also recognises the fact that we support people with any degree of sight loss, not only those who are blind.  

Please support our work and make a donation to Sight Life by clicking donate here.  

To fundraise for us please click fundraising.  

To volunteer with us please click volunteering.  

Thank you!