Annual Report 2020

In addition to supporting our COVID-19 response, our donors funded some exciting achievements within our sight-saving programs. In October 2020, we celebrated this impact during World Sight Day by launching new program activities in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

SOUTH ASIA

In India, we marked World Sight Day by inaugurating 13 vision centres across four states, bringing the total number of vision centres launched in India in 2020 to 17. Each of these vision centres serves a population of approximately 50,000 people and supports two female community health workers who live nearby. We also inaugurated a vision centre in Bangladesh.

Vision centres are permanent facilities that are established in strategic locations within a project area and staffed by trained eye health personnel. They act as a link between communities and our partner hospitals, providing eye exams, dispensing prescription eyeglasses and referring patients to the hospital for specialized treatment as needed. Through the establishment of vision centres, we have been able to empower communities to access quality, affordable eye care on a sustainable basis.

A simple pair of eyeglasses transforms a young boy’s future.

When Mohammad was two years old, his vision was poor, and his family was advised to take him for regular eye examinations to monitor his vision loss. But his family lived in a small village in India far from an eye hospital, and they weren’t able to travel to seek regular eye health care for him. His vision continued to worsen, which meant he was likely to struggle with learning when he became old enough to attend school.

Five years later, a vision centre was established close to Mohammad’s home. His father took him to the vision centre, where he was diagnosed with refractive error and given a pair of custom prescription eyeglasses. Thanks to our donors, Mohammad can see clearly and has the potential for a much brighter future.

AFRICA

In Kenya and Ghana, we held eye screening camps on World Sight Day to raise awareness around eye health and identify eye conditions that have gone untreated. Following enhanced infection prevention measures and social distancing practices, these screening camps provided people with an opportunity to prioritize the eye health of themselves and their families. In 2020, we also established a vision centre in Ghana, and we supported our partner hospitals in Ghana by providing cataract kits to strengthen their capacity to conduct quality cataract surgeries.

Eye surgery saved a little girl’s life.

When Blessing was four years old, she was playing near a pile of burning trash in her home village in Ghana when an explosion occurred. A piece of metal became embedded in her eye. Blessing was taken to a nearby hospital, where the doctor told her parents that she would lose her eye. They were overcome with grief for their daughter’s loss. “I wish this had happened to me and not my daughter,” her father said.

Although Blessing’s eye could not be saved, she still required surgery to remove the eye and avoid a life-threatening infection. Her parents struggled financially, and they knew they couldn’t afford the treatment, but they wouldn’t give up on their little girl. When they took her to a nearby hospital, she was referred to Watborg Eye Services, an Operation Eyesight partner, where most of the cost of her surgery was covered. Blessing’s wound has healed, and she has been fitted with a prosthetic eye. The generosity of our donors saved this little girl’s life