Sightsavers works in three key areas: fighting disease, disability rights, and eye health. Neil Ayres is the global head of online and design for Sightsavers and has experience with inclusion through having a daughter with additional needs, a sister with learning difficulties, and living as an immigrant child. Inclusion is important because barriers to diversity prevent it from happening, though creating empathy for inclusion without a personal connection to it can be difficult. Sightsavers promotes inclusion through initiatives like their "Put Us in the Picture" campaign, guest speakers, and improving accessibility of their digital tools and communications.

2. What does Sightsavers do?
Sightsavers works in three key areas.
Fighting disease Disability rightsEye health

3. Who am I?
Neil Ayres, global head of online and
design for Sightsavers.
Professional background in publishing,
design services and not-for-profit.

4. Why am I here?
• I’m dad to a daughter with significant
additional needs.
• I have a sister with learning difficulties.
• As a child, I lived for several years as an
immigrant in another country.

5. Why am I here?
In short, I’ve personal experience not just
of the necessity of inclusion, but the
barriers that prevent it happening.

6. So what?
That might not be of interest to someone
who doesn’t face such barriers.

7. Why should others care?
For the most part, those who aren’t
affected by the barriers to diversity are
only interested in its benefits.
The good news is, as we’ve already heard
today, there are lots of these.

8. Why should others care?
At it’s heart, inclusion is about empathy.
Not everyone has a personal aim to build a
more inclusive world.
How do we create empathy without this?

9. Inclusion at Sightsavers

10. Inclusion at Sightsavers
Put Us in the Picture campaign

11. Inclusion at Sightsavers
Guest speakers

12. Inclusion at Sightsavers
Improving accessibility

13. The diversity of diversity

14. The diversity of diversity
Diversity can mean many things.
There are the ‘protected characteristics’
defined in the UK Equality Act, such as
age, disability, gender and race.

15. The diversity of diversity
But there are also the more nuanced ways
we differ from one another, such as our
family backgrounds, thinking styles, life
experiences and the roles that we play.

16. Practising what we preach:
The online and design team
at Sightsavers

17. Practising what we preach

18. Practising what we preach

19. Practising what we preach
Communication preference

20. Inclusive recruitment
Recruitment in many organisations
presents barriers to diversity.
There are some simple ways to deal with
these, but doing so is just the first step to
becoming a genuinely inclusive workplace.

21. Inclusive recruitment
Think about:
• How you talk about yourself as
an organisation
• Where you are advertising your
job vacancies
• The application and interview process

22. Keeping people happy
Think about:
• The culture in your organisation
• How you recognise ability as well as
overcome challenges
• What an appropriate support system
looks like

23. Accessibility – tools and tips

24. Not just digital
Accessibility is a term familiar to many in
digital and service design.
It’s discussed far less in communications
design and marketing circles, but is of
equal importance.

25. Accessibility – tools and tips
Low contrast Good contrast
It doesn’t have to be complicated

26. Accessibility – tools and tips
Digital simulators

27. Accessibility – tools and tips

28. Thank you
For more information:
Email: accessibility@sightsavers.org
Visit: www.sightsavers.org/perspectives

29. Time to act: tackling
diversity and inclusion in
charity communications
4 December 2018
Seminar
London
#InclusiveComms

30. Visit the CharityComms website
to view slides from past events,
see what events we have
coming up and to check out
what else we do:
www.charitycomms.org.uk