Meet Darcy, the cheeky three-year-old ready to make his mark

At three years of age, life is full of smiles and activity for young Darcy. Growing up in country NSW, he loves fishing with his Dad, running around with his sisters and pets – and showing off his killer dance moves to Mum!

But until recently, his parents were unsure of what life would look like for Darcy. When he was just a year old, Darcy was diagnosed with ocular albinism, a form of albinism that causes vision impairment. Despite being a genetic condition, its rarity meant no one in the family had experience with low vision or knew what kind of support he would need.

“With Darcy being so young, we really didn’t how his condition would affect him. Everything felt a bit ’up in the air’”, says Darcey’s Mum, Carly. “After a recent follow up with a Paediatric Ophthalmologist we discovered he is living with low vision and struggles with depth perception, decreased clarity of central vision, nystagmus and an intolerance to bright lights. It sounds a bit silly to say how shocked we were.

We really didn't have the information we needed at the time of his diagnosis to appreciate the seriousness of his condition or realise he would need low vision supports for most of his life to live independently,” she explains. 

This all changed with a referral to Vision Australia. “I found more information on the Vision Australia website in relation to Darcy's condition in 10 minutes, then we had known since his diagnosis!” exclaims Carly.

Carly and her husband Troy knew they would need support to get through this emotional time, reaching out to family and friends to create “Darcy’s Village”. With Darcy’s siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and even pets by their side, this team have taken on 100K Your Way for 2025 to get involved and give back to Vision Australia, supporting other families just like theirs.

“We have already smashed our fundraising goal with the help of Darcy’s grandparents and our wonderful friends,” beams Carly. “Darcy’s Uncle even received donations from family in Ireland! We are so incredibly grateful every single person who has supported us and Darcy is so lucky to have such a wonderful village around him,” she adds. With their first target met, Darcy’s Village will keep pushing to create new goals and raise awareness for children with low vision.

“When people take on the 100KYW challenge, not only does it help support kids like Darcy and our family, it also creates awareness for the amazing work Vision Australia do. That awareness makes our family feel supported and less alone.”

 About Vision Australia 

Vision Australia is a leading national provider of blindness and low vision services in Australia. We work in partnership with Australians who are blind or have low vision to help them achieve the possibilities they choose in life.

We support more than 25,500 people of all ages and life stages, and circumstances. We do this through 35 Vision Australia centres in Victoria, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia; and through outreach programs in the Northern Territory and Tasmania.

We are a not-for-profit organisation and a major participant and partner in the international blindness community.

You can read more about Vision Australia on the website here.