News

Two students from the University of the West of England have chosen to work on a project with Sight 2020 Direct as part of their MBA programme. Darion Simmons and Martin Cole are in the final year of their course and are completing a consultancy project as part of their dissertation. One project will be proposing ways in which the charity could help the eye unit in Malawi to develop a financially self-sustaining cataract service and the other will be looking at how the charity can attract corporate sponsorship in order to help…continue reading →

Sight 2020 direct are sad to hear of the death of Portipher Chikopa, a special needs teacher in Makande, who passed away in February 2021. Andrew Waboso remembers Portipher, fondly from our most recent visit to Malawi. "He was an enthusiastic and dedicated teacher who took back skills from the Blind Football camp in St Montfort in November 2020."  "He is sorely missed by his students, school, family and all who got to meet him. Malawi will miss such a talented young man." "We send our condolences to his family and friends."continue reading →

Sight 2020 Direct have been awarded a grant from the International Blind Football Federation's "Let's Play" programme. We will be receiving 18 specialist sound balls for blind football and 20 eye masks, which will help us to expand our blind football programme to more schools in Malawi when we return in November this year. The team at Sight 2020 would like to thank the IBF Foundation, as well as our grants officer Fiona for putting together the successful bid!continue reading →

Our work introducing blind football to Malawi has been featured on the International Blind Sports Federation website. Running the training sessions is both enjoyable and rewarding and we remain hopeful that our 2021 blind football camp will be able to go ahead as planned. Malawi has been greatly affected by coronavirus in 2021 compared to the situation last year, but thankfully the numbers of new cases are now falling. If you would like to join us and help with our next camp then please get in touch! Donations of football kit would also…continue reading →

At the end of last year we received some great news from Mr Kaleso at St Montfort, about a project that he had completed with the support of the local community."Let me tell you one success story about St Montfort School. Through your Charity work we have learnt a lot. One of it is mindset change. You have built us a magnificent wall, you painted a classroom just to mention but a few. These are very big lessons to our community. We have mobilised the community to take part in the construction of…continue reading →

Jackie has already raised over £2000 in masks sales, a staggeringly impressive effort which has allowed us to provide much needed support to St Montfort School for visually impaired learners. However there is no sign of her mask production stopping - instead she has now launched some festive masks to keep you safe over Christmas! Proceeds will go towards funding cataract operations next year as well as our ongoing occupational therapy work with the visually impaired students.continue reading →

Andrew Feyi-Waboso has completed the Virtual London Marathon. Andrew actually completed his marathon before race winner Shura Kitata, although he had started very early on Sunday morning! He has already exceeded his fundraising target of £750, which will be split evenly between Sight 2020 and Multiple Sclerosis Society UK. Please help to reward his efforts by donating via his fundraising page.continue reading →

Sight 2020 Direct have donated some vital supplies to St Montfort School to help keep the visually impaired learners safe during the Covid pandemic. Mr Kaleso, the head teacher of St Montfort Special Needs Education School in Nguludi, joined us for our virtual committee meeting at the start of September. We were keen to hear how the school was coping during the pandemic and to find out if there was any assistance we could provide. Mr Kaleso explained that they needed materials to protect them from Covid, such as hand sanitizer and masks,…continue reading →

Yesterday we received the devastating news from one of the teachers at Nazombe School that Joseph Muyaya has been missing since May and is thought to have been murdered for his body parts. Joseph, who has albinism, took part in blind football sessions and is pictured below with his teammates. Six people are in custody in connection with his disappearance, including members of his family. In Malawi and other countires in south east Africa, people with albinism are hunted, murdered and dismembered due to the belief that their body parts have magical properties.…continue reading →

Like most organisations and individuals we have found our activities restricted by the coronavirus pandemic. We sadly have had to cancel our June trip to Malawi and are unsure whether our next scheduled visit in November 2020 will be able to go ahead. We are still working hard behind the scenes and are currently trying to organise a shipment of ophthalmic equipment to Malawi. We have some large pieces of kit, including machines needed for doing cataract operations, and are aiming to get everything in place so that we can hit the ground…continue reading →