Race for Vision 2021: united against blindness

Every year since 2016, the Race for Vision has brought together thousands of L’OCCITANE Group employees across the world. Its aim is to fight blindness in countries where many cases of vision loss could be prevented with appropriate screening or treatment. The idea is to accumulate as many collective kilometres as possible by walking, running, cycling and swimming. At the end of the event, L’OCCITANE, via its Foundation, pledges to fund projects to fight avoidable blindness. Its donation will be determined on the basis of the total distance covered.

To ensure every step contributes to the collective momentum, a dedicated mobile application serves as a link between participants. It brings together all the individual activity and enables participants to encourage one another and to create awareness about visual impairment among employees regardless of where in the world they are. The Race for Vision 2021 will be held between 7 and 27 June, and this year once again, the target is to donate a total of €300,000 to support the selected projects. In 2020, more than 8,500 people took part, covering over 750,000km. 

When it comes to philanthropy, fighting against avoidable blindness is one of L’OCCITANE’s, its subsidiaries’ and its Foundation’s major priorities for action. The commitment to this cause is closely connected with the Group’s inclusive approach. In line with that, to the extent that packaging permits, L’OCCITANE en Provence products have included braille labelling since 1997.

There is a clear link to all of the products of the L’OCCITANE Group brands, too, whose specific textures, scents and methods of application ensure they appeal to the senses in order to deliver an experience grounded in well-being. According to the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), 1.1 billion people across the world are blind or visually impaired, and yet 90% of those cases could have been prevented or cured.* 

Following the conclusion of the Union for Vision programme in 2020 (which benefited 10 million people), the L’OCCITANE Foundation has committed to helping a total of 15 million people – that’s 5 million more than last time – between 2021 and 2025 through its Caring for Sight programme, which in addition to providing screening, treatment and glasses also funds medical equipment and training. 

* https://www.iapb.org/fr/learn/vision-atlas/