Benjamin lives with his parents and six siblings in the village of Olookitareti in Kajiado County. The family struggles financially; Benjamin’s father Joshua has a chronic illness, while his mother, who lives with a disability, does her best to manage their livestock herds while also caring for the children.

In 2023, a local disability advocacy group referred Benjamin to a special needs boarding school, where he learned to read braille. His parents were grateful that he would receive an education, but they still worried about his future.

The following year, a community health worker identified cataracts in Joshua’s eyes during a door-to-door screening and referred him to our surgical camp. He took Benjamin along, hoping for a diagnosis for the child as well.

At the camp, Benjamin was also diagnosed with cataracts and referred to our pediatric cataract camp happening at another facility. But on the day of the camp, he didn’t show up. The outreach team made calls to the family to track him down, but their calls went unanswered. Finally, our community health promoter located Benjamin at his school. She later discovered that the family had lost their phone.

Recognizing the urgency of Benjamin’s condition, our outreach team contacted the family’s close friend, Pastor Titus, who accompanied Benjamin to the surgical camp with the family’s blessing.

Thanks to the support of our partners and donors like you, Benjamin successfully underwent surgery and had his vision restored. Joshua also underwent surgery and can now see clearly.

Now, Benjamin attends a regular primary school, confidently tackling Grade I. He reads and writes with ease and loves to join soccer games with the other children in the village.

His parents are grateful that Benjamin can now live up to his full potential.

Written with files from Patrick Wainaina Muthii.

This holiday season, consider giving the Gift of Sight to transform lives for more children like Benjamin!

The post Gift of Sight: Cataract surgery spares Benjamin from a life of avoidable blindness appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

What nobody realized was that some of Zara’s actions – the eye-rolling, the strange movements – are typical self-stimulatory behaviours seen in some children with severe vision impairment. As a result of these behaviours, children like Zara are sometimes misdiagnosed with autism or developmental disabilities if their low vision continues to go unrecognized.

Fortunately for Zara, her school was included in a school eye screening project we had implemented in collaboration with our partner, Nepal Eye Hospital. During the screening, community health workers discovered that Zara had cataracts in both of her eyes, a condition she’d been born with and that had severely clouded her vision throughout her young life.

The outreach team met with Zara and her mother, explained the condition to them, and told them that treatment was available. They referred the family to the nearby Simara Vision Centre for a thorough examination, where doctors confirmed the diagnosis of congenital cataracts. From there, Zara received a further referral to Nepal Eye Hospital in Kathmandu for surgery.

The Operation Eyesight project team provided crucial support, guiding Zara and her parents through the treatment process and helping them access surgery at a reduced cost, making it affordable for the family, who had limited financial resources.

Zara’s first eye surgery was a success, and a month later she returned to the hospital for surgery on the second eye. On her second visit, when she spotted Operation Eyesight’s Project Coordinator from across the hospital, she waved enthusiastically – something that would not have been possible before her first surgery.

Zara’s transformation was profound. The eye rolling stopped, her unusual movements decreased, and she became more sociable with family and friends, even interacting withstrangers. For the first time in her life, she could recognize people from a distance, read the blackboard in class and fully participate in school activities.

Zara’s mother was overwhelmed with relief to see her daughter blossom. She had been extremely worried about her child’s future, and was amazed to see Zara playing, learning and interacting like other children her age. She and her family expressed deep gratitude to the hospital, the doctors and healthcare workers, and to Operation Eyesight’s generous donors, for making this life-changing transformation possible.

Make a donation to help us reach more children like Zara with life-changing eye surgery.

Written with files from Anisha Gurung, Operation Eyesight’s Project Coordinator at Nepal Eye Hospital.

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While joining the military seems achievable, that dream was nearly shattered for Erasmus a few years ago, when an accident threatened both his vision – and his future.

It all started one evening back in 2019. Erasmus’ mother, Joyce, was inside their home in the rural community of Essiam, in Ghana’s Central Region, when she suddenly heard shouts coming from outside, where Erasmus was playing with friends. She rushed outside and found her son clutching his eye in pain. His friends told her that something had flown through the air and hit him hard in the eye.

Initially, Joyce treated Erasmus at home with some over-the-counter eye drops, but after going to school the next day, he said he was still feeling a lot of pain. His teacher recommended Joyce take him to the hospital to get it checked out.

Joyce took him to the nearest hospital, and the doctor there referred them to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in the capital city, Accra. He also advised her to make sure that nothing happens to Erasmus’ other eye, as he worried that the boy might lose sight entirely on the injured side – advice that shook Joyce to the core. She imagined her son’s future melting away, along with his eyesight.

As a single mother running a small hair-braiding salon, Joyce was overwhelmed by the cost and logistics of travelling to Accra. Eventually, she got some money together and they went to the hospital. A doctor examined Erasmus and told Joyce the damage to his eye was very serious and that he would need surgery.

But Joyce couldn’t afford the surgery. She tried everything – asking family for help, borrowing what she could – but it was never enough.

In the meantime, Erasmus continued to have pain and irritation and couldn’t see much out of the affected eye. Joyce, tears spilling from her own eyes as she remembers that bleak period, says she was terrified for her son and felt completely alone in dealing with the problem.

Then, in 2023, she learned that a charity had visited Erasmus’ school and had checked on the students’ eyes. She rushed down to the school and learned that Erasmus had been identified as a student in need of a referral for a more thorough diagnosis.

That eye charity was, of course, Operation Eyesight, working in tandem with the ministries of health and education, and our partner hospital, Watborg Eye Services, in Awutu Breku. Erasmus got a referral to Watborg, where he received a thorough eye exam.

Joyce learned that her son’s injury had developed into a cataract. A traumatic cataract happens when an eye injury disrupts the lens fibers – leading to a clouding of the lens. Up to 1.6 million people lose sight to eye injuries each year.

Erasmus was scheduled for surgery in two weeks’ time. And although Joyce was told that the surgery would be provided free of charge, she couldn’t quite believe it and continued to worry about the costs.

Two weeks later, Joyce and Erasmus returned to Watborg for the cataract surgery. Doctors told her the operation went well, and they kept Erasmus in hospital for another couple days to allow the eye to heal.

To Joyce’s relief, she learned that the surgery was in fact done free of charge, made possible through our School Eye Health Project supported by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Charities. The project covered all other expenses, including transportation, meals, the hospital stay and post-surgical appointments.

Due to the complexity of Erasmus’ injury, it would take him additional time to recover than most cataract patients. For weeks after the operation, Joyce anxiously asked, “Can you see yet?” The answer was always no — until one day, Erasmus burst into her salon shouting, “Ma, I can see! I can see!”

Erasmus now wears prescription glasses to school, his future once again in focus. Joyce, deeply moved, says she’s forever grateful to Operation Eyesight and our partners for restoring her son’s sight, and her hope.

The post “Ma, I Can See!”: A Ghanaian boy’s journey from injury to clear vision appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

This World Sight Day, our colours are lighting up skylines in communities across Canada, from Calgary to Winnipeg and from Guelph to Toronto. We’ll be sharing photos on our website and social media, so everyone can see them.  

If you live in Calgary, where we have been based for more than six decades, look up, way up, at the Calgary Tower after dark on October 9. To help raise awareness of the importance of eye health, the Calgary Tower will shine in Operation Eyesight’s blue and orange.

If you live in Toronto, you can see the CN Tower shining in blue and orange (and yellow, for another eye-related organization that is also marketing World Sight Day). Wherever you live in Canada, urban, rural or remote, you can view the CN Tower lighting through the Tower’s webcam here. Catch the light show at the top of every hour and at every half hour.

Guelph’s Market Square lit up in blue and orange overnight on October 8 to 9.

The Winnipeg Esplanade Riel Bridge and city sign will be lit up on October 11 for World Sight Day as well as World Blindness Awareness month (October).

Why we’re raising awareness of eye health in Canada on World Sight Day

As of 2019, in Canada, 1.2 million people experience vision loss, which is 3.2 per cent of the population, and another estimated eight million people – 19 per cent – have eye conditions that could lead to blindness.

Fortunately, 75 per cent of vision loss in Canada is avoidable

Avoidable vision loss can be prevented or treated when detected and addressed early. This is best done through regular eye exams; however, just 51 per cent of people in Canada are aware of how often to get an exam. Vision loss impacts people of all ages and touches all aspects of life including:

• education (students with uncorrected refractive error learn 50 per cent less than peers);
• employment (vision loss can lead to a 30 per cent reduction in employment); and
• Canada’s economy – in 2019 alone the estimated cost of vision loss was nearly 33 billion dollars according to The Cost of Vision Loss and Blindness in Canada report.

World Sight Day is in focus in Canada this year with the passing of the National Strategy for Eye Care Act  in November 2024.

Kris Kelm, our Global Director – International Programs and Chair of the Canadian Eye Health Coalition, says, “Canada has made eye health a national priority with the passage of the National Strategy for Eye Care Act. We’re hard at work with like-minded organizations and communities, including Indigenous communities, to help shape the framework for an eye health care system that will serve all Canadians, from Inuvik to Iqaluit, and from Victoria to St. John’s – and every urban, rural and remote community in between. We are proud to bring more than 60 years of experience – earned building eye health care systems with partners in Africa and South Asia – to the table, and we feel that there is a lot for our Canadian policy to learn from international experience.”

Our President & CEO Kashinath Bhoosnurmath says, “Together, we can build an eye health care system in Canada that improves quality of life for us all, personally and for our family, friends, colleagues and neighbours. Together, we can eliminate avoidable vision loss in Canada to expand our collective opportunities – and be a shining inspiration for others.”

Eyesight on the international stage

On September 23, 2025, the UN Friends of Vision, collaborating with the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) which facilitates World Sight Day worldwide, presented the very first The Value of Vision: The Investment Case for Eye Health to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The case will help inform international frameworks and lay a path for countries to build eye health care systems.

World Sight Day 2025: A list of Operation Eyesight activities in Canada

• Co-hosting a webinar for decision makers called The Future in Focus: Eye Health in Canada and Beyond. The webinar, a collaboration between Operation Eyesight, Seva Canada and Orbis Canada, will focus on the rising demand for eye health care nationally and globally, on Thursday, October 9.
• Helping kids love their eyes: We’re encouraging parents, guardians and teachers to download resources for educating children (and themselves) about eye health: operationeyesight.com/free-resources-for-parents

We will be sharing our activities on social media and our website. Learn more or donate in honour of World Sight Day at operationeyesight.com/worldsightday.

Happy World Sight Day! And thank you to our staff, donors and partners around the world for your steadfast dedication to our mission to prevent blindness and restore sight – For All The World To See!

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