2023
ANNUAL
REPORT
Two years ago, Amandah (pictured left), from Uasin Gishu County, Kenya, received her first pair of eyeglasses through our school eye health program. Now in the sixth grade, she is thriving in school and working toward her dream of becoming a designer when she grows up.
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Message from our President & CEO
It’s difficult to put into words the look in the eyes of a child, woman or man when they receive the Gift of Sight. We see hope restored in a better future for themselves, their family and their entire community. With access to quality and affordable eye health care, closed doors become opportunities, isolation turns into belonging, and sadness becomes joy.
I consider myself fortunate because I get to meet with such individuals whenever I travel to one of our program countries. Besides hope, I see in their eyes a deep sense of gratitude for our donors and supporters. Together in 2023, we impacted the lives of more individuals, families and communities than ever before. It was a year of growth for Operation Eyesight and the communities we work alongside, as we launched new community projects, expanded infrastructure and facilities, trained more teams on the ground, and declared entire communities free of avoidable vision loss.
It was also a milestone year, as we celebrated our 60th anniversary. I invite you to watch our video, which showcases the impact we have had together over the past six decades. As we reflected on our past and the impact we have had together, it was also a time to chart the path ahead. With the development and approval of our 2024-28 Global Strategy, we are evolving, growing, and continuing to lead the global eye health sector.
2024 promises to be a year of continued growth for Operation Eyesight, as we scale up our interventions while adopting innovative eye health solutions. We will create new partnerships and strengthen existing ones. Our global community will also drive awareness and support for our mission across our countries of operation worldwide. It’s the generosity, commitment, and passion of our donors and partners that make all this possible. For this, I offer my heartfelt thanks on behalf of our global community.
Together, we are transforming lives – For All The World To See!
With gratitude,
Kashinath “Kash” Bhoosnurmath
President & CEO
Operation Eyesight Universal
We believe that everyone, everywhere has a right to clear vision and healthy eyes.
That’s why we have teams on the ground, working alongside local hospitals and communities to bring eye health care to those who need it most. We do this through our five programming areas:
Preventing Blindness and Restoring Sight
Ultimately, our goal is to declare all of our partner communities as avoidable blindness-free. To date, we have declared 1,372 villages as avoidable blindness-free, across our programs in Ghana, Kenya, India and Nepal.
Your Impact in 2023
*At time of publication, the disaggregated data by age was not available for Malawi. For ease of consolidated reporting, the data for Malawi is captured under the ‘Adults’ column.
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Where we work
Where we work
Sri Lanka
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View a larger version of the map here
Read our Global Strategy to learn about how we’ll grow
Welcome Dr. Ritu Ghosh
In 2023, we welcomed Dr. Ritu Ghosh as our Global Director – International Programmes. Based in Hyderabad, India, she leads our program initiatives across all of our countries of work.
Pictured left – Dr. Ritu Ghosh, Operation Eyesight’s Global Director, International Programmes, speaks with attendees at the opening of the new eye unit at Kajiado County Referral Hospital, Kenya.
Help for the whole family
A passion for care and community
Sight and independence restored for Nepalese grandmother
Decades of support, a lifetime of compassion
FEATURED
STORIES
2023
Financials
In 2023, we reflected on our past as we celebrated our 60th anniversary, and we also looked to the future as we developed our 2024-2028 Global Strategy. We are a healthy organization with ambitious goals that require strategic investments in all aspects of our operations, and we have worked on an investment plan and secured significant donations to support this future growth.
After generating a small surplus in 2022, we were well positioned in 2023 to begin the foundational work in preparation of the launch our global strategy. Some expenditures were one-time investments, and although we utilized part of the surplus gained in 2022 to fund them, they contributed to the figure of 41 per cent of 2023 expenses shown in the pie chart.
We continue to partner with local hospitals and organizations to provide a value much higher than the actual program expenditures we report (59 per cent in 2023), with many of our non-financial technical partners contributing to our overall program impact. We sometimes must temporarily delay project activities due to weather or conflict; this was the case in some project areas in 2023, which impacted our program expenditures. Over the next few years, the percentage of international programs related to overall expenditures will increase as we implement our global strategy.
With ongoing support from our global community, we will expand our service reach and improve quality of life for more individuals.
For a detailed summary, see page 29 in the PDF.
You can also view our full 2023 financial statements here.
Thank you to our donors!
Our work would not be possible without the compassion and support of our global community. We are grateful to all of our donors – including legacy donors, annual donors, major donors, institutional funders and 636 monthly donors – for their incredible generosity. See a list of our donors who gave $5,000 or more in the full annual report. (Pages 31 & 32)
