As blind and vision impaired people, we, like our colleagues, friends, and neighbours who have sight, possess an earnest desire to contribute to the world in which we live in substantial and meaningful ways. However, unlike sighted people, our first hurdle is our ability to live independently in the world before we can even begin to make our own special contributions.
Through the efforts of Blind Citizens NZ and your financial support, we’re working on the removal of the barriers we face so we can make our mark in the world. We are not an organisation helping blind people; we are blind people ourselves putting our own personal time and energy into pursuing our vision of a world in which we can be fully independent and able to contribute to our full potential. You can learn more about Blind Citizens NZ as an organisation, the issues we are pursuing on behalf of our members, and read about our elected Board members and what motivates them.
Some of the barriers that restrict us are about the acceptance of differences and diversity in our communities, some are about just making places easier for blind and vision impaired people to deal with, and some are about taking advantage of new tools and technologies already in common use so we can fully participate in society, on an equal basis with others.
Blind Citizens NZ receives no government funding. It is a charitable organisation. Most of its funding is received from the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind, but in the last seven years that funding has steadily declined and this decline is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, forcing the Association to find more of its funding on its own from other sources such as:
- Memberships
- Donations
- Bequests
- Funding projects
- Sponsorship
- Payroll giving
Donations we receive will directly help ensure blind consumers continue to have a voice. Please follow this link to make a donation online.
Please contact our National Office if you would like to support the ABC NZ in some other way.