The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust: A Lasting Legacy
The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust is a time-limited charitable foundation established in 2012 to mark and celebrate Her Majesty The Queen’s 60-year contribution to the Commonwealth at the time of her Diamond Jubilee. The Trust received donations from governments, corporate partners, trusts, foundations, community groups and individuals from across the Commonwealth, and its programmes worked in alliance towards eliminating avoidable blindness and to empower a new generation of young leaders. The Trust’s mission has been to leave a lasting legacy, owned by the whole Commonwealth, to honour Her Majesty The Queen.
In January 2020, the Trust will have successfully completed its programmes and will close to the public as planned before ceasing to operate as a grant-making organisation later that year. The Trust has achieved a significant, sustainable reduction in avoidable blindness across the Commonwealth and created and developed a cadre of remarkable young leaders as a legacy in honour of Her Majesty The Queen as Head of the Commonwealth.
To mark its impact across the Commonwealth, the Trust has published A Lasting Legacy comprising 62 stories of individuals from 54 countries whose lives have changed as a result of the Trust. Read it here
A short 10 minute film which highlights how the legacy of the Trust will continue in the work of the Queen’s Young Leaders and the millions of families who will not be burdened by the loss of sight can be watched here.
Thanks to the efforts of its partners, the Trust has been a trail blazer in championing the issues of diabetic retinopathy and retinopathy of prematurity across the Commonwealth – two major causes of blindness in adults and babies respectively. It has identified and supported a range of solutions to screen and treat people with these conditions, adapted to different local conditions, and strengthened eye health systems to ensure people do not needlessly go blind.
The Trust and its partner the Public Health Foundation of India have been instrumental in supporting the Government of India to tackle blindness in premature babies by developing national guidelines for health care professionals, to ensure quality care is delivered and blindness in pre-term infants is prevented.
Through the work of the Commonwealth Eye Health Consortium the Trust has helped to train up a workforce to deliver quality eye health services in low- and middle-income Commonwealth countries. It has created new networks of support between specialists, funded research and invested in ground-breaking new technology to enable people at risk of blindness, in even the remotest of settings, to access quality eye care. Visit Commonwealth Eye Health Consortium for more information.