Advocacy and The Foundation
Our advocacy work is all about achieving social change, which can be done in a number of ways. Sometimes it’s through lobbying governments to commit budget to eye health, shifting public attitude through education, or amending policies and laws.
No matter the approach, we’re always driven by the same goal – ending avoidable blindness.
The key to advocacy is making sure our messages are clear and reach the people who have the power to make change, like policy makers and other key decision makers.
What methods do we focus on?
- Strengthening national health systems with a focus on eye health
- Encouraging in-country government support for better resources
- Empowering local workers to implement effective, safe and quality eye interventions
- Creating financial systems that ensure services are affordable and available to everyone – from cities to remote villages
How do we campaign for change?
- Work with partners to increase awareness both in-country and globally
- Use our research to help communicate results and create messages about avoidable blindness
- Train a workforce who will drive sustainable and improved eye health services from within affected countries
- Collaborate to be even more effective – with communities, other organisations, individuals or governments
We're for Australian Aid
Australian Aid saves lives and helps break down the barriers of poverty. But our government now invests less than 1 per cent of the national budget in development. If we want to have a better and fairer future, it's important that Australia does all it can.
If we all work together, we'll continue our steps towards ending inequality, hunger, and lack of health care. The world has made some progress with global poverty being halved in the last ten years and nearly halving the rate of women dying during childbirth.
Reconciliation Action Plan
The RAP is a plan that mobilises staff of The Foundation around the theme of reconciliation. It encourages staff to look for and take advantage of opportunities to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their businesses.
The Foundation’s Reconciliation Action Plan emphasises the importance of working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and ensures the entire workforce is more aware of the importance of reconciliation.
The RAP represents the next stage of The Foundation’s reconciliation journey to continue Fred’s passion and desire for equality between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous Australians.
Sustainable Development Goals
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. The work of The Foundation, and the eye health and development sectors more broadly, will impact on and be impacted by the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Drawing primarily on programmatic data from 2018 and some key initiatives from 2017 and 2018, we’ve produced a ‘Contribution Report’ reflecting The Foundation’s pledge to better understand its role within the SDGs, and to lead by example through publicly committing to further strengthening our engagement.
It describes our core contribution to specific SDG targets across The Foundation, illustrates how we are impacting the lives of real people on the ground, and provides public accountability for stepping up action in the coming years.
The following explores some of the themes found in that report - but if you’d like to take a deep-dive, download the full Contribution Report here (and the accessible version here).
