Stephen started out raising livestock but found it difficult to make ends meet. He then tried more lucrative work as a motorcycle taxi driver and courier, but his poor eyesight combined with the dusty country roads made the job too dangerous for him.

Eventually, Stephen visited a private hospital where he was diagnosed with trachoma, an infectious eye disease that causes the eyelid to turn inward. As a result of the disease, the eyelashes rub against the eye, causing intense pain, scarring of the cornea and, if left untreated, blindness.

Stephen received a pair of eyeglasses at the hospital and was sent on his way, but he found that the glasses only made things worse. By this point, his right eyelid was so swollen that it was starting to obscure his vision and caused his eye to tear up constantly.

Stephen went to another hospital, where he learned that he needed surgery to treat the trachoma infection in his right eye. With help from his family, Stephen raised the money he needed and got the procedure done. But there was no improvement to his eyesight, and before long, the trachoma infection had returned.

With remarkable doggedness, Stephen went to a third hospital. Again, he underwent surgery. And again, his condition didn’t improve.

After that, Stephen nearly gave up. But then something happened to reignite hope. He finally crossed paths with Operation Eyesight.

In October, Stephen heard that there would be free eye camp for trachoma patients at the Ntulele Health Centre on World Sight Day, which falls on the 12th of the month. He visited the centre to learn more, and a surgeon examined him and recommended another operation. Stephen recounted his previous experiences, but the surgeon reassured him that they could improve his condition.

Stephen returned to the health centre later in October, and along with many others, underwent his third procedure. Thanks to the generous support of our donors, Stephen got the surgery done free of charge. After the bandages came off, he was filled with joy and relief. His vision was unobscured once again. His right eyelid had been surgically rotated back into place, and his cornea had been spared of any scarring.

“Now I can get back to my motorcycle business,” he says, “just like the other young men from my village.”

Stephen adds that he is grateful for the work Operation Eyesight is doing in his village through the eye health outreach programs.

“Many villagers are happy about this project because it has literally opened their eyes,” he says. “A lot of people had eye problems, but now they have been treated.”

As well as resuming his work to support his family, Stephen is also acting as an eye health ambassador in his village. When community health workers who work in the village encounter a patient who is nervous about getting surgery for their trachoma, they call on Stephen to share his experience.

With files from Eunice Mwihaki Murigi.

The post Persistence wins after lengthy battle with trachoma appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Where in Ethiopia are our programs?

They are scattered across one region called Amhara in northern Ethiopia, and the span of the project is about 200 kilometres.

What kinds of projects are we running there?

One is a community eye health program, and the other is a WASH-related project, which means water, sanitation and hygiene.

Tell me about the community eye health program.

With this particular project, we are working with an international NGO called Partners in Education Ethiopia, which works in the education sector by mobilizing the community and building a school with its support. The goal of the partnership is to improve quality of life of students and staff of the schools, their families and other members of nearby communities through addressing visual impairment.

Under the community eye health program, we train community health workers, who are government employees, in primary eye care and in the implementation of community eye health activities. They go door to door, identify people with eye conditions and refer them to one of our vision centres. At the vision centre they get a comprehensive eye exam by a well-trained optometrist. If they are found to have refractive error, they are prescribed eyeglasses, and if they need any surgical intervention or further diagnosis, they’re referred to the base hospital.

Further, these community health workers raise awareness about eye health with the help of behaviour change communication materials. All these interventions lead to the empowerment of the communities to take care of their eye health care needs, and once that is achieved, we declare the village or community as avoidable blindness-free.

Our hospital partners are the ophthalmic department of Tibebe Ghion Specialized Hospital, Injibara Secondary Hospital, Addis Alem Hospital, Durbetie Hospital and Debrework Hospital.

Do the schools offer eye screenings as well?

Yes, we are also training teachers to screen students and identify those who have refractive errors or any kind of eye conditions requiring treatment. Similar to our door-to-door screening program, students identified with eye conditions are referred on to the vision centre for a comprehensive screening, treatment and further referrals.

What kind of WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) projects are we implementing?

What we are trying to do is to help the schools and the communities access clean water. You may know that the Blue Nile River originates in Ethiopia from Lake Tana in Bahir Dar, in Amhara. But there is a shortage of clean water in the areas where we are intervening, so people have to struggle and go a long distance to fetch clean water. Sometimes it may be around 10-12 kilometres. They are dependent on seasonal wells and springs. And most of the time, the water is not very clean.

With the support of the Peter Gilgan Foundation, we received funding to provide clean water in three different communities and to support teenage girls by providing them a private place for their menstrual needs. We are also working with the school health clubs in all those schools, and we are educating them about face cleaning, personal hygiene and sanitation.

We work with water and sanitation to reduce the burden of trachoma, an eye infection that leads to vision loss and even blindness if left untreated. How high are trachoma rates in the area?

In the area where we work, the trachoma rate ranges from 5.5 to 20 per cent, so it’s not uniform across the region. The trachoma rate has been reduced a little bit, but it is still a public health issue.

What are some of the challenges of working in this area?

We have a committed team in our project areas that includes community health workers. They are part of the public health system and are responsible for implementing many government programs and projects on top of Operation Eyesight’s community eye health project activities, like door-to-door surveys, health education and awareness sessions. This creates heavy workload on the community health workers and often results in a delay of our projects.

The second is the high cost associated in provisioning clean water to the communities. The price of drilling a borehole in Ethiopia is nearly three times higher than in Zambia. One reason is that the ground water table has gone down, so you need to dig deeper. The second is that you don’t find as many private drilling companies, so it can be harder to find a competitive rate.

Last but not least, the country is currently facing high inflation. Fortunately, there has been little impact on recent projects as we are importing the equipment needed for establishing new vision centres. However, the cost of living for people in the project area has gone up.  

Were there any memorable moments from your recent trip you can tell us about?

I was in the Addis Alem project area where we are working with community health workers. We were in a village where they were doing a door-to-door survey, and they took us to a particular family that they were very attached to. They told us that this was the house of a very elderly gentleman who had not been able to see anything for the last six years.

When they first met him during their initial survey, he had lost all hope of getting his sight back. But they had counselled him and then they took that gentleman to the hospital at their own cost to make sure he got an operation.

You could see the smile on this gentleman’s face, and it was incredible! That family is highly grateful to all these health extension workers who are doing marvellous work.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can learn more about our work in Ethiopia here.

The post Celebrating five years of work in Ethiopia appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

The scene above was one of many such moments observed by the Operation Eyesight team during a recent community workshop in the city of Udhampur in northern India. The goal of the workshop was to get input on some new educational materials from members of the communities where they will be used.

The illustration described above is from a series of flash cards that tell the story of a mother with vision problems who doesn’t understand why her daughter has received an award at school because she can’t read the writing on the certificate. The story is meant to jumpstart conversations about why women in the region are often hesitant to seek out eye health care.

Over two days, eight community members from several villages in our project area worked with an Operation Eyesight team that included an artist, a writer, a gender equality specialist and several of our program managers.

“It’s important to note that the community was the driver for these materials,” says Dr. Troy Cunningham, our Country Director for India. “Our experts took the backseat. The images were decided by the community members, the stories were decided by them. Even before the artist and writer sat down with the community, we took them around the villages to meet people with eye problems.”

The new educational materials are just one small part of a larger eye health project we are undertaking in the region. Called “Empowering Women in Rural India by Debunking Feminine Eye Health Myths,” the project was launched in 2022 in partnership with the nearby Rotary Eye and ENT Hospital in Udhampur, and Edmonton’s NorQuest College. The project is being funded by the Inter-Council Network’s FIT program, which stands for “The Fund for Innovation and Transformation”. The program is designed to support Canadian organizations so they can test innovative solutions for advancing gender equality in the Global South, and is funded by Global Affairs Canada.  

The Udhampur Block stretches over miles of hilly Himalayan terrain in India’s Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Roads connecting the region’s villages are prone to flooding and landslides. For many, it’s difficult to leave the village to seek any kind of health care, so vision problems often go ignored, especially for women and girls.

What’s more is that there are a number of gender-related eye health myths that also create barriers to seeking medical care. As a result, our team designed a custom project for the region, which includes sending a four-wheel drive mobile vision clinic staffed with an all-female healthcare team into the area. We have also trained local women as community health workers. These health workers use the new educational materials in their daily work.

Here is a snapshot of some of the new materials that our team and the community members have developed.

Jhanoo’s Cataract

Jhanoo is the oldest rhinoceros in her clan. She can’t see well because of her cataracts, but she thinks that she is too old to have them treated. The youngest member of the clan, Banoo, convinces her that she should see the local community health worker. After the visit with the health worker, Jhanoo agrees to get cataract surgery, and after the operation she enjoys a more independent lifestyle. She also gets back to a key role she plays in her community – teaching math to the local children.

This story is designed to ease fears of surgery and show the community how important eye health is to even its oldest members. It is presented to the community participants as a series of flash cards that they put in order to tell the story.

Cunningham says that, initially, his team was concerned that the community members would be offended by the artist’s use of animals to depict people, but they decided to wait and see what feedback they would receive at the workshop in Udhampur. To the team’s surprise, the community members loved the rhinos and told the artist to stick with the theme.  

Rani’s Story

Rani is an embroidery artist. She has a pair of eyeglasses, but she doesn’t wear them because her parents worry they will affect her chances of finding a good life partner. As a result, she makes a lot of errors in her work and her supervisor is unhappy with her. She speaks to a friend who convinces her to wear her glasses more often. Her work improves and she gets a promotion.

This story, shared through a poster, is aimed at getting more young women to seek treatment for vision problems and to wear their eyeglasses. It’s meant to combat the stereotypes that prevent many women from addressing their vision problems.

Next steps

For the past few months, community health workers in the Udhampur region have been piloting these new materials as they conduct surveys and workshops throughout the project area. Along the way, the team has been continuing to tweak and update the materials to make sure they best serve the communities.

Project Manager Tapobrat Bhuyan says the materials are important tools for understanding the issues in each village.

“They can explore the main concepts and myths through the stories told in the materials,” he says. “All the materials come with a session guide, and there are some excellent questions in the guide that help them to understand the problems in the community.”

The project is just one more way we are working towards the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG number five, Gender Equality.

The post Community input helps bring new educational materials to life appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

After taking a few bad falls, the family decided her daughter-in-law would have to stay home with her, a move that had a serious effect on the family’s income. 

“I felt very depressed,” says Ratna of her loss of independence. The grandmother, who lives in Tokha, Nepal, explained that she couldn’t even recognize her own son and had to ask him to call out to her so she could identify him. She needed an escort just to get to the bathroom and back, and she despaired about not being able to care for her family the way they were caring for her. 

When a community health worker visited the household, Ratna was referred to the Nepal Eye Hospital, where she was diagnosed with cataracts. She explains that she hadn’t realized that her condition could be treated, and initially she was nervous about getting surgery.  

“I gathered strength,” she says, “Because the community health worker told me the treatment would change my world.”  

Thanks to our partnership with the Nepal Eye Hospital, Ratna underwent phacoemulsification surgery – a technique that doesn’t require sutures and has a short recovery time – free of charge.  

Soon, Ratna was back in the family home, thrilled to get back to a more independent lifestyle.  

With her son sitting as a ward chairman in the community, Ratna feels that she can set an example by telling others about her success with the surgery. 

“Now I am a strong pillar for the family, setting an example for others to get the eye care services without fear,” she proudly says. 

But the best part, according to her son? “Now, she is happy,” he says.  

Give the Gift of Sight today and help restore sight and independence for more women like Ratna. Vision impairment disproportionately affects women and girls, but they are less likely to be prioritized for eye health care. That’s why our Hospital-Based Community Eye Health projects are aimed at reaching everyone in need of eye care, regardless of gender or family income.  

The post Sight and independence restored for Nepalese grandmother appeared first on Operation Eyesight.