For most Londoners, stepping out for a walk, meeting someone for coffee or visiting a favourite museum is an ordinary part of life. For others, especially those living with sight loss and little day-to-day support, those simple moments of connection can become painfully difficult to reach. That’s why a new £5,000 grant from London Freemasons to BlindAid matters so much. It will help bring companionship, confidence and practical support to some of the capital’s more isolated blind and partially sighted residents.

The funding will support Share London Plus, a new volunteer-powered initiative from BlindAid that is designed to reconnect severely isolated people with the city around them. The project is expected to benefit around 50 to 60 blind and partially sighted adults in Islington and Kensington & Chelsea, many of whom are unable to leave home alone and face significant barriers to everyday life.

BlindAid is especially well placed to understand the challenge. You might not have heard of them next to better-known charities, but founded in 1834, it’s London’s oldest sight loss charity and has spent nearly two centuries working to reduce isolation, improve wellbeing and promote independence for blind and visually impaired Londoners. Today it supports around 1,200 people across 12 inner London boroughs, offering practical and emotional help to those who might otherwise be left cut off from their communities.

This latest project builds on that long tradition. The grant will fund the recruitment, DBS checking, training and supervision of 50 new volunteers; who will provide regular home visits, companionship, welfare checks and practical help with light tasks. Just as importantly, they will accompany people on local outings – perhaps to a park, a café or a museum – helping them re-engage with the places and experiences that many of us take for granted.

That idea of “opening up London again” sits at the heart of BlindAid’s wider Share London model. The charity describes the service as a way of pairing visually impaired Londoners with local volunteers so they can get out of their homes and enjoy the social and cultural life of the capital. It is built around shared experience, careful matching and the simple but powerful value of spending time together.

For the people BlindAid supports, this is about much more than a pleasant trip out. The charity’s beneficiaries are often older people living alone with sight loss, facing a difficult combination of isolation, poor health, low income and reduced independence. Transport barriers, inaccessible infrastructure and limited digital skills can leave them effectively excluded from everyday life, unable to access services, maintain social ties or feel part of their local area. More than 80% of BlindAid’s beneficiaries receive no support at all from any other charities.

Sue O’Hara, BlindAid’s CEO, captures that reality powerfully. The funding, she says, will help the charity reach “60 vulnerable individuals in desperate need of human contact and practical support.” Many of those beneficiaries, she adds, “feel completely forgotten”; and this project will help change that by bringing “companionship, connection and a helping hand back into their lives.” That support is both emotional and practical. BlindAid’s wider mission is not only to assist people with the daily consequences of sight loss, but also to ensure that no visually impaired Londoner is left living in isolation. Its work is grounded in regular, individualised support; whether through home visits, calls, community projects or guided outings; all designed to help people feel engaged, connected and valued.

That makes the London Freemasons grant especially meaningful. Paul King from the London Freemasons’ Charity describes the initiative as one that is “opening up London to this vulnerable and often overlooked element of our community.” It is a simple phrase, but an apt one: because for people whose world has gradually narrowed through isolation and practical difficulty, the chance to step back into the life of the city can be transformative. This is not only a donation towards a project: it’s support for conversation, routine and shared experiences. It’s help with the small tasks that make life manageable and with the social contact that makes life feel fuller. For dozens of Londoners living with sight loss, Share London Plus is a promise of both assistance and reconnection.

This article is part of Arena Magazine Issue 60 – Spring 2026.
Arena Magazine is the official online magazine of the London Freemasons – Metropolitan Grand Lodge and Metropolitan Grand Chapter of London.

Read more articles in Arena Issue 60 here.

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