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RNID expands beneficiaries to include everybody

Governance | Tania Mason | 29 Oct 2008

Deafness charity the RNID has expanded its charitable aims to cater not just for people who are deaf now, but for anyone who may have hearing problems in the future.

The new vision and strategy has been developed following a six-month review under the leadership of chief executive Jackie Ballard, who has been in the post for a year this month.

The new aims, which required a change to the organisation's vision statement but not its objects, means the charity's beneficiaries now effectively include everybody.

Its vision statement now reads: ‘Our vision is of a world where deafness or hearing loss do not limit or determine opportunity, and where people value their hearing.'

Three strategic themes 

RNID's activities over the next five years will revolve around three strategic themes: ensuring the rights and opportunities for deaf and hard-of-hearing people to lead a full life; promoting hearing health, preventing hearing loss, and curing deafness; and removing the stigma of deafness.

The prevention side is likely to manifest itself in more campaigning to raise public awareness of the causes of hearing loss and promotion of ways to avoid it.

Legitimacy for campaigning

In recent years the charity has already dabbled with this - its ‘Don't Lose the Music' campaign in 2003-4 encouraged clubbers to wear earplugs, but Ballard said the new strategy "gives legitimacy to that sort of campaigning now."

The wider remit also gives the charity a "different message to take to funders", she said.

The change has been driven by two factors - the UK's ageing population, and new lifestyle trends that means more young people are risking their hearing by going to loud nightclubs and listening to MP3 players at high volume.

Latest figures suggest that 41 per cent of people over 50 will have some kind of hearing loss, rising to 71 per cent of those over 70.

New direction ‘right'

The European Union released a report earlier this month claiming that one in ten people with personal MP3 or CD players are at risk of permanent hearing loss because their music is too loud.

It estimated that up to 10 million people across Europe, including many children and adolescents, could be affected.

Ballard said this showed the EU had similar concerns and demonstrated that the RNID's new direction was the right one to take.

Ballard joined the RNID last October from the RSPCA and succeeded John Low who had gone to Charities Aid Foundation.

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