The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust is a charitable foundation with a mission to leave a lasting legacy, owned by the whole Commonwealth, in honour of Her Majesty The Queen.
In this timeline, explore the history of The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee trust and its achievements.
CHOGM 2011
The Commonwealth Heads of Government announce their intention to create a charitable initiative to mark The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust is established...
The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust is established as a charitable foundation, to mark and celebrate Her Majesty The Queen’s sixty-year contribution to the Commonwealth.
The Trust's mission
The Trust announces it will leave a lasting legacy to Her Majesty The Queen by launching five-year programmes to work in partnership to end avoidable blindness and to empower young leaders.
Launch of the Queen's Young Leaders
The Duke of Cambridge and The Duke of Sussex launch the search for the first ever Queen’s Young Leaders. Hundreds of applications flooded in from incredible young people all dedicated to making lasting change in their community and beyond
Congratulating the first ever Queen's Young Leaders
The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry congratulate the first ever Queen's Young Leaders.
The Queen's Young Leaders 2015
The Queen’s Young Leaders of 2015 receive their Awards from Her Majesty The Queen at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
The Queen’s Young Leaders Award recognises and celebrates exceptional people aged 18-29 from across the Commonwealth, who are taking the lead in their communities and using their skills to transform lives
The first ever Queen's Young Leaders receive their Awards at Buckingham Palace
Her Majesty The Queen presents Awards to the Commonwealth’s first ever Queen’s Young Leaders in a special ceremony at Buckingham Palace, recognising exceptional young people who are making lasting change in their communities and across the Commonwealth.
The Countess of Wessex becomes Vice-Patron
Her Royal Highness The Countess of Wessex becomes Vice-Patron of The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust on the occasion of her 50th birthday. She undertakes her first engagement with the Trust to see the work of the newly created Commonwealth Eye Health Consortium at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The Queen’s Young Leaders Programme announces grants
The Queen’s Young Leaders Programme announces grants to 17 organisations across 5 Commonwealth countries, to enable them to deliver life-changing work for young people.
Each one of the supported projects in Bangladesh, Jamaica, Solomon Islands, the UK and Zambia aims to improve the lives of young people in their country, by providing opportunities to learn new skills, enter employment and giving them a voice in their communities.
Time to See shows the impact of avoidable blindness
Five multi-award winning photojournalists, Ashley Gilbertson, Poulomi Basu, Sam Faulkner, Andrew Quilty and Adam Ferguson, visited seven countries across the Commonwealth – Australia, Fiji, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Uganda – to document the impact completely avoidable forms of blindness are having on people and communities.
The 'Time to See' exhibition supports work that The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust and Standard Chartered are doing to prevent avoidable blindness.
Queen's Young Leaders 2016 Announced
60 young people from across the Commonwealth are recognised as exceptional leaders in their community as part of the 2016 Queen’s Young Leaders Programme.
Queen Young Leaders Awards 2016
In The Queen's 90th Birthday year, Her Majesty presents Queen Young Leaders Awards to 64 exceptional young people from across the Commonwealth at Buckingham Palace.
The Queen’s Young Leaders Award winners of 2017 announced
The Queen’s Young Leaders Awards recognise and celebrate exceptional young people aged 18 to 29 in the Commonwealth who are driving change within their communities and transforming people’s lives. Now in its third and penultimate year, the 60 young people announced as winners become part of the growing Queen’s Young Leaders community, a unique network of influential young change-makers who are coming together and supported by the Trust and its partners to become an even greater force for good.
The Countess of Wessex visits Malawi
The Countess of Wessex visits Malawi to see the work being done by The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust to eliminate blinding trachoma, champion youth leadership and celebrate Commonwealth Week.
Peek Retina Launched
Peek Vision launches Peek Retina, a smartphone camera adapter for retinal imaging which takes pictures inside the eye.
Peek is being supported by The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust through the Commonwealth Eye Health Consortium, which was set up to deliver a programme of fellowships, research and technology aimed at strengthening eye care throughout the Commonwealth.
The Queen’s Young Leaders of 2017 receive their Awards from The Queen
Her Majesty The Queen presents young leaders from across the Commonwealth with Queen’s Young Leaders Award at Buckingham Palace. His Royal Highness Prince Harry joined the Queen in congratulating the Winners at the ceremony.
Botswana set to become first country in the world to provide eye health screening to an entire generation of school children
In partnership with Peek Vision, the Government of Botswana celebrated its commitment to provide eye health screening to every school child in the country by 2020 – the first country in the world to do so - at an event hosted by the British High Commission in Gaborone.
The Countess of Wessex visits Bangladesh
The Countess of Wessex undertakes a visit to Barisal in Bangladesh to see Trust-supported programmes to ensure people with diabetes do not go blind
Landmark moment as Commonwealth Governments commit to bringing vision to everyone, everywhere
Blindness and poor eyesight are a growing problem which affects millions of people across every Commonwealth country. At the Heads of Government meeting in the United Kingdom (CHOGM), Commonwealth leaders therefore agreed for the first time to take action to ensure all citizens have access to quality eye care.
The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust and the City of London Corporation held a special event to mark efforts undertaken by Commonwealth nations to bring vision to everyone, everywhere.
The final cohort of Queen’s Young Leaders receive their awards.
The Queen’s Young Leaders of 2018 receive their Awards from The Queen, completing a network of Queen’s Young Leaders who form a unique community of 240 influential change-makers, representing 53 Commonwealth countries.
The Commonwealth Eye Health Consortium
The Countess of Wessex joins the Commonwealth Eye Health Consortium.
The Consortium brings over 170 eye health experts from 27 Commonwealth countries – who are aiming to expand and develop eye health services across the Commonwealth.
The Countess of Wessex visits India to see the work of the Trust
The Countess of Wessex undertook five days of engagements in India as part of her final overseas tour in her role as Vice-Patron of the Trust. The Countess saw how the Trust is working across the country to prevent babies born prematurely from losing their sight to retinopathy of prematurity – the world’s leading cause of childhood blindness.
The Countess also visited projects set up by two Queen’s Young Leaders to transform women’s health in India.
Queen’s Young Leaders gather in London to celebrate the achievements of the programme
To mark the completion of the Queen's Young Leaders Programme, Award winners and grantee beneficiaries gathered at Guildhall in London to share their experiences of the programme at a special event hosted by the City of London Corporation to demonstrate how young people have the ideas, energy and talent to make a positive difference in their communities.
As part of the event, which marked the completion of the Queen’s Young Leaders Programme, BBC broadcaster and presenter Tina Daheley hosted a panel discussion to explore the challenges young people face and how their solutions are shaping a better future. Joining Tina on the panel was award-winning social entrepreneur Natalie Campbell, 2018 Queen’s Young Leader Award winner Elizabeth Kasujja and grantee beneficiary Nisani Gnanasoorian.
Following the panel discussion, guests were invited to look around an exhibition of short films from grantees and beneficiaries who had benefitted from the Queen’s Young Leaders Grants Programme. Using a participatory approach, beneficiaries of the programme created their own videos to document their stories of change and how their lives had been transformed as a result of the Queen’s Young Leaders initiative.
Lasting Legacy - A book to remember The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust
The Trust leaves behind an astonishing workforce of health care professionals who span every continent of the Commonwealth, and who will continue to make eye care accessible to everyone, to ensure that no one in the future will be needlessly blind.
To change the lives of people for the better right across the Commonwealth in just five years was an enormous challenge and one that could not have been achieved without the hard work of all those whom The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust has been privileged to work.
The Trust has written a book 'A Lasting Legacy' to remember just some of the amazing stories of the health care professionals and those they helped.
The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust has worked with remarkable individuals across the Commonwealth who together have reached tens of millions of people to help prevent blindness.
The Trust also created a network of courageous and driven young leaders who are tackling some of the world’s most pressing issues.
This film celebrates the heroic work of just a few of the thousands of people who have built the Trust’s legacy. Through the collective efforts of many, lives have been transformed in every single Commonwealth country in honour of Her Majesty The Queen.
