About us

Our vision

The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association wants a world in which all people who are blind and partially-sighted enjoy the same rights, opportunities and responsibilities as everyone else.

Our mission

Our mission is to provide guide dogs, mobility and other rehabilitation services that meet the needs of blind and partially-sighted people.

We also:

  • campaign for the rights of people who are blind and partially-sighted,
  • educate the public about eye care
  • invest millions of pounds in eye disease research
A guide dog trainer with a golden retriever guide dog.

Independence

Once someone has lost their sight, a guide dog can give back a degree of freedom that often feels little short of miraculous. Most guide dog owners will tell you that when it comes to mobility aids, these highly-trained and sensitive animals are second to none. We have been expertly breeding and training guide dogs now for over seventy years and have provided thousands of dogs to blind and partially-sighted people of all ages and from all walks of life.

When sight loss threatens to take away a person’s freedom of movement, Guide Dogs is there to help.

An image of a bunch of carrots still with their tops on.

Eye health

We also know, however, that there’s an enormous amount that can be done to help prevent sight loss occurring in the first place. Sophisticated medical research is being undertaken into many different causes of blindness, much of the UK-based work commissioned and funded by Guide Dogs. Our findings could eventually lead to new treatments for common eye diseases in both adults and children.

But eye health is not just the business of scientists. Part of our mission is to get across simple messages about eye health to the public, particularly to children and young people. We can all be responsible for taking care of our sight and Guide Dogs’ programme of eye health education is giving people the information they need to help prevent future sight loss.

A yellow labrador guide dog is pictured on a train station platform with a train behind him.

Campaigning for equal rights

We hope that our ophthalmic research and eye health programmes will result in a progressively lower incidence of blindness in the years to come. For now, however, vision impairment is still a fact of life for many thousands of people and we are campaigning alongside them for rights that most sighted people take for granted.

With our focus on mobility, freedom to travel is close to our hearts and we have lobbied extensively for the right of guide dog owners to enjoy access to all forms of transport. We have worked closely with guide dog owners, transport companies and MPs and together we have won major victories. We’ll be launching more campaigns over the coming years.