The Aston Villa Foundation’s award-winning Villa Vision initiative will receive three years of additional funding through the Premier League, the Professional Footballer’s Association (PFA) and Aston Villa’s club partner Aston University to continue to raise awareness on the importance of eye health to children and adults within local communities in Birmingham.
The project has also renewed its partnership with The OneSight Essilor Luxottica Foundation, who will continue to provide the essential equipment required to perform comprehensive eye examinations within Villa Vision’s eyecare van, along with supplying two free pairs of lenses for every child that is dispensed through this initiative.
Villa Vision, designed and delivered by the Foundation’s dedicated eyecare team, is funded by the Premier League and PFA, and strategically supported and funded by Aston University and The OneSight Essilor Luxottica Foundation.
The initiative is the first of its kind in the UK, delivering workshops, vision screenings, and eye testing in primary schools across Birmingham, engaging with children aged nine to 11.
Administered through the Premier League Charitable Fund, the Premier League and PFA Community Fund helps football clubs tackle inequality and respond to local challenges, supporting people and their communities to be more inclusive.
Nick Perchard, Premier League Director of Community, said: “One of the things I admire about the Aston Villa Foundation is the way they take risks and innovate, using the Premier League and Professional Football Association’s (PFA) Community Fund to establish unique projects.
“Projects such as Villa Vision, the Foundation’s eye health initiative, are not what people expect football clubs to deliver, but by utilising the skills and expertise of local partners, as well as using the power of football, it engages people of all different walks of life to have access to key facilities and change the lives of the local community for the better.”
Fredrik Jönsson, Head of EssilorLuxottica Wholesale UK and Ireland, said: “We’re so delighted to be supporting such a worthwhile initiative and to be providing corrective lenses to these children.
"The initiative is a natural fit for EssilorLuxottica – aligned with the initiatives of our OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation, which aims to help eliminate uncorrected poor vision in a generation by raising awareness on the importance of good vision, creating sustainable access to vision care, and to ultimately help us strive towards our overall mission to help people 'See more and be more'.
Since the project’s inception in 2020, Villa Vision has reached several successful milestones to continue the project’s growth and impact on the local community, with almost 11,000 individual interventions actioned and over 300 pairs of free glasses have been prescribed to more than 160 children since its launch in 2020.
The next phase of the project launches the initiative into three secondary schools within the Summit Learning Trust during the 2023/24 academic year, establishing the programme into secondary schools for the first time.
Villa Vision also facilitates the placement of volunteer optometry students from Aston University’s School of Optometry. Students are provided with an opportunity to support classroom workshops and vision screening sessions, in turn enabling them to develop and enhance both their communication skills and eye examination techniques with children, as well as understanding the potential of this and other future career pathways within the profession.
Leon Davies, professor of optometry & physiological optics at Aston University and president of The College of Optometrists, said: “Villa Vision’s renewed funding reflects the Foundation’s pioneering work over the last three years. Good eye health is a fundamental requirement for all, and particularly so for children to maximise their education attainment and life prospects. I’m proud of Aston University’s involvement to date and pleased to see that our undergraduate optometry students continue to benefit from Villa Vision’s in-school placements.”
