“Our eyes are like the light of the human body,” she says. “Without your eyes, you can’t do anything. You can’t go anywhere. So, the eye is very important to talk about and take care of.”

Joana wanted to bring better eye health care to people in her district by studying ophthalmic nursing, but pursuing further studies felt out of reach because of the costs of leaving her job to attend classes full time. Still, Joana didn’t give up. After discussing her aspirations with the District Director of Health Services in Awutu Senya, our partner on a community eye health project, the director reached out to us for support. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, Joana’s dream became reality; we provided the financial assistance she needed to advance her education.

Today, Joana is fully certified as an ophthalmic nurse, after completing a degree program at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra. She works at the Senya Beraku Polyclinic in her home district. She says that with her advanced training, she’s better able to diagnose, refer, and explain conditions and procedures to her patients. Most importantly, she is better equipped to combat eye health myths and misconceptions that prevent many patients from getting treatment.

Joana is just one of many healthcare providers and doctors whom we’ve supported in pursuing further studies since we were founded in 1963. One of the pillars of our work is to help build health systems by investing in hospital equipment and infrastructure, by establishing vision centres and by providing training opportunities for healthcare professionals. It’s all part of our sustainable approach to health care, which emphasizes building expertise at the local level.

Building facilities in the heart of the community

The town of Chitipa is located at the northern tip of Malawi, hours away from the larger cities in the country’s more populous south. Until recently, people in the area had to travel between 100 to 350 kilometres to get any kind of eye health care because the local hospital was over capacity.

In March 2025, all that changed when we partnered with the Malawi Ministry of Health to open the new Operation Eyesight Vision Centre at the Chitipa District Hospital. Today, the district’s 256,000 people can visit the clinic to get everything from a routine eye exam to cataract surgery.

For Lydia, who lives in a village just outside of Chitipa, the new vision centre arrived just in time. For years, she’d noticed tearing in her left eye. Eventually, it became uncontrollable. She tried reading glasses, eye drops, various medications… nothing worked. Finally, she went to the hospital in Chitipa for help. There, she was diagnosed with cataracts and referred for surgery in Mzuzu, more than six hours away. She put off the operation while she saved money for the travelling it would entail.

When the new Operation Eyesight Vision Centre opened, Lydia was thrilled to find out that she could get her surgery much closer to home. In August 2025, she underwent the operation on her left eye, free of charge. Today, she is enjoying a higher quality of life, with her left eye no longer tearing up – and improved vision overall.

The vision centre in Chitipa is just one of many facilities we’ve helped establish in recent years. In May 2025, we successfully handed over a new eye clinic at the Garbatulla Sub-County Hospital to the County of Isiolo in Kenya. The clinic was developed in partnership with the county government and the Kenya Ministry of Health, with funding from Johnson & Johnson. Also in 2025, we laid the foundation stone for the construction of the Secondary Eye Hospital in Yadgir, Karnataka, India, in collaboration with the Shri Guru Mahipatiraj Eye Bank and Research Foundation Trust.   

Supporting early screening and intervention

On the banks of the Ramganga River in Uttar Pradesh, India, sprawls the city of Moradabad, home to our partner hospital, the C.L. Gupta Eye Institute. In recent years, we’ve been working closely with the institute’s Vice-Chairman, Dr. Ashi Khurana, to help some of the area’s smallest residents – premature babies.

India has the highest rate of preterm births in the world, and the emergence of more Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) has greatly improved the survival rate of premature infants. But as more of these preemies grow up, an alarming trend is developing – some of these children end up going blind.

The culprit is Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), a condition that causes problems with the development of the blood vessels in the baby’s eye. If untreated, it can cause permanent vision loss and even total blindness.

Dr. Khurana remembers first hearing about the problem when a local doctor approached her with concerns about the high number of local children who had gone blind due to ROP. The problem, they realized, was a lack of screening at the growing number of local NICUs.

In answer, Dr. Khurana and her team launched a pilot ROP program to screen Moradabad infants for the condition, which later expanded to include a partnership with Operation Eyesight. Dubbed the Retinopathy of Prematurity Eradication Project, the program runs a mobile eye clinic staffed by an optometrist who has training in ROP screening and laser treatment. The optometrist travels with specialized equipment to NICUs throughout the area, providing both screening and treatment, while referring more complex cases back to the C.L. Gupta Eye Institute.

With help from Rotary Club partners, we supplied the program with essential equipment, including an imaging system used to examine the baby’s retinas, and a specialized laser system that is the gold standard for treating ROP. We also helped the hospital with the purchase of a mobile screening van, and we participated in the creation of educational materials to make sure that both healthcare providers and families understood the risks of ROP.

In the second year of the project, the screening area expanded from one district to five, including 28 NICUs. Between July 2024 and March 2025, 685 preterm babies were screened for ROP, with 54 of them receiving laser surgery, and another 35 treated with intravitreal injections.  

Providing quality equipment – and the means to maintain it

Thanks to the generosity of our donors, we often purchase and upgrade ophthalmic equipment to help our partners offer the highest quality care possible, just like we did with the ROP project. Throughout our decades of work, we’ve equipped everything from vision centres to highly specialized operating theatres. We’ve also provided various types of vehicles to transport patients from rugged, remote locations to hospital, and to serve as mobile screening units on wheels – like the one now being used to screen infants in the Moradabad area.

In addition to donating equipment, we are committed to ensuring sustainability by providing additional funding for equipment maintenance training. In 2024, Dumisani Jere from our partner facility, Mzuzu Central Hospital in Malawi, was sent to India’s Aravind Institute to do a one-month Ophthalmic Instruments Maintenance course. Since then, he has been providing support to eye clinics throughout our project areas in Malawi’s Northern Region.

Achieving sustainability through local investment

Hospital strengthening is at the heart of our mission to create lasting change. By investing in infrastructure, equipping facilities and training local professionals, we help build resilient health systems that can deliver quality eye care for generations to come. From vision centres in Malawi to advanced neonatal screening programs in India, these initiatives ensure that care is accessible, sustainable and rooted in local expertise. Thanks to the support of our donors, we’re not just treating patients – we’re strengthening health systems and empowering communities to protect sight for the future.

Donate today to help strengthen more hospitals and train more ophthalmic staff – For All The World To See.

The post Hospital strengthening – how building up health systems improves sustainability appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Raj and his wife, Ramya, acted quickly and took Priyansh to a local doctor who diagnosed him with a tumor. After more consultations, the family was advised to get treatment at the Operation Eyesight Universal Institute for Eye Cancer at the L V Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad, India.

The Operation Eyesight Universal Institute for Eye Cancer was made possible by the generous gift of an anonymous Canadian family, and through our longtime collaboration with the renowned eye hospital. Since 2015, the Institute has provided comprehensive treatment for the entire range of ophthalmic tumors in both adults and children. It is one of just a handful of centres in the world that specializes in this type of treatment.

Once he arrived at the Institute, Pryiansh was examined by an ophthalmologist who diagnosed him with fourth-grade retinoblastoma, a severe form of eye cancer that largely affects very young children.

With the level of danger the cancer presented, the doctor recommended that the affected eye be surgically removed. Although heartbroken by the diagnosis, the family knew surgery was their only hope to save their son. The operation was a success, and Priyansh’s outlook improved, but the journey was far from over. Following the surgery, Priyansh underwent grueling chemotherapy sessions to make sure there were no remaining cancer cells. The little boy was left weakened and frail, but kept his spirits up during treatment.

Due to the demands of Priyansh’s treatment, Raj, who works as a taxi driver, had to take time off work. In order to help free the family from the financial burden caused by Priyansh’s diagnosis, the L V Prasad Eye Institute was able to offer the treatment completely free of charge, allowing the family to focus on recovery.

Today, Priyansh is stable, and his parents are extremely grateful for the care he received.

To date, the Operation Eyesight Universal Institute for Eye Cancer has identified and treated 18,515 patients for eye cancer.

With special thanks to the L V Prasad Eye Institute, who originally reported this story.

The post Early detection gives little boy a second chance at life appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Catherine was overjoyed when she heard about the opportunity to become a community health volunteer with Operation Eyesight.

However, Catherine’s family was not so thrilled.

“Why would you want to work for free?” They would ask her.

“I volunteer because I’m helping people. It’s my dream come true!” Catherine says.

She always wanted to help the people in her community. As a girl, she had wanted to become a nurse. Unfortunately, while she was still in school her father retired and left her village, and she wasn’t able to finish her training.

Later on, Catherine’s husband passed away, leaving her to raise four children alone. Two of her children have since married and moved into their own homes, leaving Catherine with her youngest daughter and son.

To make ends meet, Catherine became a merchant at the local market, and has since established a small grocery store near her home which provides her with a steady income. Because Catherine’s family is supported by the grocery store, she’s able to volunteer in her community as an eye health worker. Plus, she was a natural choice for the position because she had the necessary base-level of education for the job.

Her day starts early as she prepares to go to the Chawama eye clinic, one of our partner hospitals in Zambia. She performs door-to-door eye screenings, and sometimes she works in the eye care department supporting ophthalmic personnel.

As a volunteer, Catherine advises people in her communities to seek professional health care in general, not just eye care.

Catherine’s work is challenging, especially not knowing how people will react to her when she visits each household. Some welcome her while others refuse to even talk to her. The people who refuse her do so because they believe that community health workers might bring diseases with them.

In some cases, adult patients agree to be screened, but won’t allow their children to be screened. This is often because of religious superstition. That’s why community health workers always carry identity cards with them. The cards are provided by the hospital and prove that they work for the hospital, and are not part of a religious cult.

In some cases, it’s a lack of education that influences patients’ reactions. One patient stands out in Catherine’s memory –  a lady by the name of Sabina who couldn’t see because of bi-lateral cataract (cataract in both eyes).  Sabina was too afraid to go for surgery because she’d been told that the doctors would remove her eyes and put them on a dish to wash them before replacing them. A story that would discourage anyone!

But Catherine’s counseling helped Sabina make the decision to have cataract surgery — and today she is so very excited to see again!

After seeing all the good Catherine has done through her volunteering, her family members are now supportive. Community health workers are well-respected. Many people will seek them out for advice on various health issues, especially eye health care.

“Even neighbours in my community will look for me when they visit the clinic to ask me about the various processes. I’m always happy to help them,” says Catherine.

Catherine plans to continue assisting the community even after the project is complete. She knows there will always be a need for health work.

Catherine has encouraged others to volunteer as community health workers so they can also help those in need in the community.

Although Catherine may not be paid for her work, there are other benefits that come with being a health worker. “Thanks to the work I do, I’m regarded as a member of the staff at the eye clinic, which gives my family and I ready access to the health care we need right when we need it,” says Catherine.

Catherine is thankful to everyone involved in her work including the doctors who treat patients and her fellow community health workers. She’s especially thankful and so grateful to the generous people of Canada for their donations.

“The donations from the people in Canada are helping the Zambian people, especially in the community of Chawama. Now many lives have been changed with the gift of restored vision,” she says.

Just imagine how much good your gifts have done. The community of Chawama are receiving the eye health care they need, and women like Catherine are empowered to make real and tangible changes for the better in their communities. There are still many communities who need your help – please consider giving to our community screening and outreach program today to help other communities like Chawama.

The post A big heart for the people – this community health volunteer is changing lives. appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

March 8th is International Women’s Day. Let’s take a moment to recognize the thousands of women who make our community health worker program great! They’re proud to be caregivers for their entire communities.

Take Harriet, for instance. Harriet lives in the village of Dominase in Ghana. Harriet is an Operation Eyesight-trained community health worker, and she loves her job. She visits every household in the area she works, conducting surveys and eye screening for entire families. She refers patients who need further treatment, teaches general health workshops, and arranges transportation for those who need to travel to access eye care.

“I was surprised at how many people in the community have eye problems. I especially enjoy helping mothers and their children. I know I’m a lifeline for them,” she says. “It’s a delight bringing eye care to my area.”

We agree, Harriet!

In fact, our entire community health worker program exists because our donors understand the need to help bring eye care to those who need it most.

We’re taking the opportunity to thank the incredible women who make our work possible. At Operation Eyesight, we’re proud of and inspired by these women and their dedication to eliminating avoidable blindness in the communities where they work.

This International Women’s Day, have you thought to thank the women in your life for the amazing things they’re doing? You can give the special women in your life a meaningful gift by donating in their honour and sending them a beautiful personalized eCard! 

The post Celebrating community health workers on International Women’s Day appeared first on Operation Eyesight.