Latest news with #RetinaUK
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Walk with a white cane to raise money for charity
A sponsored walk will see participants carrying a large white cane. The 5k Wight White Cane Walk, set to take place on June 8, at 3pm, will raise money towards finding a treatment or cure for inherited progressive blindness. The length of the cane will be determined by the number of people joining the walk. The event will start from the green opposite the Alamo bar and grill in Ryde and will follow the coastal path to the Boathouse and back. Donations can be made along the route into collecting buckets carried by the participants. Donations can be made at All raised funds will help people with these conditions on the Island to potentially regain their sight and enjoy the local scenery again. Those wishing to take part can register at The event is organised by Retina UK, a charity dedicated to supporting research.
BBC News
28-04-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Blind veteran makes candles for VE Day
"Making candles allows me to channel my thoughts and emotions into something beautiful."Tony Haskey has made a batch of candles to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE 65-year-old from Poole is selling them in aid of Blind Veterans UK, which has supported him since he became visually impaired."I hope that people can burn a candle, think of those who laid down their lives for us, and know that the candle is burning in their memory," he says. "It would be a wonderful thing for me and my heart," he Haskey has adapted his candle-making process because of his sight loss."I use talking scales to weigh up the fragrance, I'm using and I purchase wax in blocks of certain weights so I can cut them to the right size, consistently," he explains. Mr Haskey joined the Royal Marines aged later, on an overseas operation, he felt something amiss with his vision, and a medic told him he had an incurable eye says: "I was feeling low, I had to return to the UK alone and leave my unit and comrades behind."He was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a condition which worsens over time. Retinitis pigmentosa It is an inherited eye condition that affects the photoreceptor cells responsible for capturing images from the visual cells line the back of the eye in the region known as the retina and help with low light, peripheral vision, and seeing detail and these cells die there is a gradual decline in than 80 causative genes have been identified, and faults in any one of these can cause the Retina UK Mr Haskey was 27 when he was diagnosed, and he says his world "fell apart". "I was absolutely devastated by the news," he recalls."I went home from the hospital and started to contemplate what I'd been told. I got depressed and felt that was the end for me. "The career I'd set up to do well in had come to an end. I didn't know what job opportunities were available to me. "I was frightened and alone."But Blind Veterans UK sent him to its rehabilitation centre in 1993 to learn about basic housekeeping, cooking and computer literacy says when he arrived he was in a "deep void with no self-confidence, no self-worth and no self-belief" but that each day there was a "new beginning". Half of the profits for his candles will go towards the about VE Day's anniversary, he says: "As someone who is still fortunate to be here today, I look back at the legacy that the young men and women left behind and fail to see how anyone couldn't acknowledge their worth."We have our liberty today because of their sacrifice." You can follow BBC Dorset on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
