It’s also time to think about gifts for the special folks in your life. Our team has put together a great menu of gift options this year. Each Operation Eyesight gift conveys a beautiful message to a friend, family, colleague or that hard-to-buy-for person. And each has a profound impact on a person, family and community in the developing world.

We thought we’d put together a list of five of our most popular gift guide options paired with ideas of who they’d be perfect for – hope you enjoy!

1. For the bookworm on your list, bring the world into focus for three children with the gift of brand-new, custom-fitted prescription eyeglasses. Your gift can help children enjoy reading for only $20.
2. For the person who loves to travel and see the world, give a cataract surgery for just $30. Cataract is the most common form of blindness in the world and quite easily treatable with a straightforward surgery. Give the gift of sight today and open a world of new possibilities for someone in Africa or India!
3. For the teenager in your life who takes 20 minute showers (or perhaps one who rarely showers at all), give the gift of water. The struggle against avoidable blindness can’t be won without access to clean water, which is in scarce supply in sub-Saharan Africa. Gifts that fund water projects start at $50.
4. For the volunteer who is always looking after the community, give the gift of community eye care for $100. Often people who need care the most can’t make it to a clinic or hospital. Community eye care brings care to them – reaching marginalized individuals and families right where they live.
5. For the teacher or person who loves to learn, give the gift of training. The training we fund gives locals the means to take care of their own people. Gifts of training start at $100.

We have gifts that cover all price points! Your friends and loved ones receive a personalized card of your choice and an overview of the work the gift will support. Go to https://oearchive.swoondev.site/giftguide to order your life-changing gifts today.

The post 5 fun philanthropic holiday gift ideas appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

My reaction seems to be pretty common here in North America, but in India and Africa, most children welcome eyeglasses as a precious gift. Here’s a great story from India that shows why.

Reethu Malli, who lives with her family in Fatehnagar slum in New Delhi, was an excellent student – so much so that her father, a factory worker, made major financial sacrifices to get the 12-year-old into a nearby private school. That’s why her parents were concerned when she started complaining of headaches and trouble seeing the blackboard. Her teachers also noticed her behaviour changed and she even fell down the school stairs.

When her father took her to a local doctor, he prescribed rest and multi-vitamins. After several days, there was no improvement. In fact, Reethu’s marks plunged and she started staying home to avoid school and her friends. Her parents were very concerned – what would happen to Reethu if she couldn’t get a good education?

A neighbour recommended the local Operation Eyesight vision centre, which provides treatment free of charge. After and examination there, the technician recommended eyeglasses. Reethu and her family were unconvinced that such a simple thing could be the answer.

Fortunately, one of our community health workers followed up with the family and convinced them to get Reethu screened again. When she was diagnosed with refractive error for a second time, they agreed to try the eyeglasses, which were available without charge to them thanks to generous Operation Eyesight donors.

Today, thanks to those brand new, custom-fitted eyeglasses, Reethu can see clearly again. She is playing with her friends, attending school and achieving good grades once more! Her glasses help ensure she gets a good education and a bright future. Her parents are thrilled. And so are we. It’s a privilege to put our donors’ gifts to use in ways that truly change lives.

You can change the lives of three children like Reethu by giving just $20 through our online Gift Guide today. Give gifts that give twice this holiday season!

The post SEE what a difference glasses can make appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Used glasses are not a reasonable solution to this ongoing issue, because they are often fitted to the “closest match” in one eye instead of the proper prescription for both eyes.

Out-of-date frames are often rejected by even the poorest adults and children who, despite their economic circumstances, still want to look attractive – just because they’re poor doesn’t mean they live in a cultural vacuum.

Besides, India no longer allows used eyeglasses into the country as they interfere with their own industry.

Given these facts, Operation Eyesight stopped processing used eyeglasses in 2003.

But helping people with low vision is still central to our work, so here is our approach: Every partner hospital we work with provides optical services that ensure each patient who needs glasses is wearing the proper corrective lens for each eye and has a modern-looking frame that they are comfortable wearing.

Furthermore, the sale of more expensive glasses to people who can afford them subsidizes the cost for patients who can’t.

This also generates additional revenue for the hospital, helping it maintain financial sustainability.

I should mention that there are two or three kinds of “adjustable lens” eye glasses being touted for use in countries where optical services are scarce or unavailable. Unfortunately, they are handed out without any eye exam and we believe they have detrimental effects on identifying eye disease and preventing blindness.

Furthermore, people find them heavy and awkward-looking. The cost for a pair is $20 or more which is well above the $2 to $4 charged for eyeglasses in most hospital optical shops.

And again, this approach overlooks issues like sustainability of eye care services, cross-subsidy systems that ensure access for all people and care for people with “non-standard” refractive conditions such as astigmatism.

We believe that short cuts to development have limited and short-term benefits. Everyone concerned about eye care in low income countries needs to think about unnecessary blindness as a public health issue that will finally be eliminated when each country can provide basic health care – including eye care services that they can sustain without foreign support.

Self-financing optical shops and services are a practical and realizable solution to the problem of visual impairment due to the lack of affordable eyeglasses.

The post What about eye glasses? Part 2 appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Think about it. If all you see are dim shapes, you’re not going to be able to get around easily, work or take care of yourself. And like blindness, low vision or visual impairment is a big problem in the developing world.

“Uncorrected refractive error” is the technical term for what we understand as the need for glasses. It has been estimated that as many as 200 to 300 million people, mostly in poor countries, stumble through life simply because they can’t afford an eye exam or glasses.

And they’re cheap! In India, an exam and eye glasses for a child can cost as little as $5.

Uncorrected refractive error is an unnecessary disability that has a major impact on people’s lives and causes profound economic disadvantages to individuals, their families and societies. People living with uncorrected vision impairment are more likely to be excluded from basic education, suffer from isolation and have fewer employment opportunities. 

The link between poverty and avoidable blindness is indisputable.

Here in Canada one hardly gives a thought to this issue, as eye exams and glasses are readily available even to low income families. But in developing countries, eye exams and affordable eye glasses are a scarce commodity.

Sadly, there are many instances where schools for the blind are populated by children who simply need a pair of prescription lens in order to see. Their lives and futures severely limited by the lack of resources and opportunity.

Many temporary solutions have been put forward in the absence of proper exams and eyeglass prescriptions, such as used eyeglasses, adjustable lens and dispensing “readers” or magnifying glasses as an entrepreneurial venture.

However none of them are as effective as a proper eye exam and the proper prescription lens. Here’s why: everyone needs a proper eye exam to accurately diagnose the cause of the vision impairment, which may be simply the need for glasses but could also be developing diseases that can cause permanent blindness if left untreated.

There are other considerations around this topic. Watch for Part 2 a few weeks from now when I’ll be writing about used eyeglasses.

The post What about eye glasses? Part 1 appeared first on Operation Eyesight.