At a Commonwealth reception held at St James’s Palace on October 27, Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales were presented with images taken from the landmark photography exhibition, Time to See.
Time to See aims to bring to the attention of the Commonwealth and the world the impact of avoidable blindness, and the solutions readily available to end it. There are 98 million people in the Commonwealth today who are blind or have low vision, yet four out of five needn’t be. There are straightforward, known solutions that can make an incalculable difference to the lives of millions of individuals and families who are unnecessarily affected.
Five multi-award winning photojournalists, including VII’s Ashley Gilbertson and Poulomi Basu, visited seven countries across the Commonwealth – Australia, Fiji, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Uganda – to document the impact completely avoidable forms of blindness are having on people and communities.
Time to See highlights work that The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust and Standard Chartered are developing and supporting to prevent avoidable blindness.
Dr Astrid Bonfield CBE, Chief Executive of The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee said, “We are honoured to have been given this opportunity to present images from our exhibition Time to See to Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. Time to See demonstrates the incredible work that our partners are delivering across the Commonwealth to save the sight of millions. The sad, and often unknown reality is that 80% of blindness is avoidable, and we hope that these striking images, taken by of some of the Commonwealth’s leading photographers, will harness the awareness and further support of others to help us achieve our ultimate goal of ending avoidable blindness across the Commonwealth.”
The full exhibition will be on display at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Valletta, Malta from 26th to 28th November 2015, where The Queen and The Prince of Wales will also be present.
The exhibition will tour the Commonwealth throughout 2016.
