So, when 70-year-old Parmuat, a Maasai herder in Kajiado County, Kenya, thought he might have to sell off his cows, he was devastated.  

Several years ago, Parmuat looked outside his home and couldn’t see his cows anywhere. When he found them, he realized they had been right in front of him all along, on a hill near the house. He hadn’t been able to see them because of his increasingly blurry eyesight.

As his vision got worse, Parmuat found it harder and harder to care for his herd. He didn’t know how else to make an income, and he worried that he and his wife would become a burden to their 12 children, now grown up and raising families of their own.

Parmuat’s luck changed when a community health assistant, whom we’d trained in primary eye care, knocked on his door during a door-to-door eye screening and diagnosed him with cataracts.

Just a few weeks later, Parmuat learned he would be among the first patients to get cataract surgery at the new eye unit at the Kajiado County Referral Hospital.

After surgery, when a nurse removed the gauze from his eyes, Parmuat marveled at his restored vision. “Everything was clear again,” he says, “as if the sun suddenly came up.”

Now back at home with his wife, Parmuat says that he doesn’t need to sell any cows. In fact, he adds with a twinkle, he’s thinking about buying a couple more.

With files from Patrick Wainaina

The post Cataract surgery saves cattle herder’s livelihood appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Last week, I told you about how women and girls in many Maasai villages have to journey kilometres every day to search for water. Their lives are an endless routine of water gathering, so necessary in their parched, dusty land. Yet sometimes, a life can be changed…

Rebecca is 28 years old and lives on a Maasai homestead in Narok district, Kenya with her husband and their four children. Accessing water used to be a very stressful part of Rebecca’s life. She trudged up to 10 kilometres every day to access water from the Siyiapei River for her family and their small but precious herd of cows, sheep and goats.

Fortunately, Rebecca’s life took a significant change for the better a few years ago, when Operation Eyesight, the Kenya Ministry of Health Services, and Kenya’s Water Resources Management Authority drilled a borehole near their village.

The borehole is less than one kilometre from their homestead, and Rebecca and her husband are employed as the caretakers of the water project. This has given them an additional job of which they are very proud, as well as a steady monthly income.

Rebecca’s family has also earned the trust of the community as they regulate the water for domestic and livestock use and manage the banking that results from the water sales. Water beyond personal use is sold for a modest fee to help pay for maintenance of the well, generator and housing – all of which ensures the borehole’s sustainability for future generations.

The well has had significant health benefits for Rebecca and everyone else in the village. Water-borne diseases have been reduced, which has also reduced the money spent on medical services. In addition, access to clean water has allowed for improved personal hygiene, reducing ailments such as trachoma and skin infections which have plagued the area for years.

Rebecca hopes that “such worthy help will land in another community and that Operation Eyesight will get more money to continue helping others.” She is most grateful to our generous donors for supporting the well and freeing people like her from the fear of avoidable blindness.

Like the starfish, Rebecca’s life was changed because someone cared enough to make a difference! Learn more about how you can help people like her.

The post A starfish on the Kenyan plains appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

The difference between my first visit to Ongata Naado in 2006 (before the well was drilled) and my return visit in 2009 left me with the distinct impression that things were going to happen, but there wasn’t a lot you could put your finger on.

However, upon my third visit earlier this year, the changes I saw were stunning – I thought I was in the wrong village. This dry, dusty outpost on the Kenya plains has come to life! There are fruit trees and acres of gardens growing soy beans, cabbage and other crops, all looking neat and tidy.

Well-built brick buildings have popped up, including a new school, a dormitory, and a community dining room. The school now serves 648 children from Ongata Naado and four nearby villages. There are now 10 teachers, and the headmaster (who was the original teacher in the village) told me that being sent to teach at Ongata Naado “used to be punishment,” but not anymore.

The borehole has its own building which contains the pump and generator, and an electric fence surrounds it to keep elephants away. Water pipes are laid strategically to a long concrete trough for livestock as well as downhill to the gardens and even to other villages. This well is supplying water to some 3,000 people. The people of the village have so much initiative that they are even talking about bottling water for sale.

What really struck me was the mood. The women are thrilled that they don’t have to walk far for water every day, and their plans for the future are exciting. The community is resourceful, progressive and organized to seize opportunity.

This shows you what water can do. Oh, and trachoma, the original reason for the water well? This terrible eye disease has disappeared from Ongata Naado – it is gone, eliminated. The cycle of recurring infection that antibiotics and treatment could not stop has received, you might say, the final nail in its coffin.

I know you’ll agree that this is a wonderful story. But Ongata Naado is only the first of 51 waterpoints in the Narok district where Operation Eyesight began to drill boreholes. Wait until you hear about what happens with the other 50!

And remember – none of this would be happening without the generous support of our donors. So please help us continue this work as we reach into other parts of Africa. Take a look at our Gift Guide to see how you too can help change lives.

The post Ongata Naado – a village transformed (Part 2 of 2) appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

In Kenya, Operation Eyesight has been fighting the terrible trachoma infection for many years with antibiotics and surgery. But despite our best efforts, this eye disease just wasn’t going away.

We decided that if trachoma was to be beaten we had to deal with the root problem of personal hygiene, which can only happen with a reliable source of clean water. In Kenya, that means deep water wells, which led us to Ongata Naado.

I remember first visiting this village in 2006. It is located on a vast prairie region of Kenya where the Maasai people live. The village wasn’t much to look at because these nomadic people don’t stay in one place for long.  It was dry and wind-blown with a ramshackle school that held only 20 students.

Every Tuesday the teacher would shut down the school and ride his bike for 20 km to get 27 litres of water that would last him and the children a week. Families would also forage afar to find water, so whatever they collected was used for drinking and cooking, not for washing. You can imagine how the kids’ faces were like fly magnets. Disease traveled from face to face, with new infections popping up constantly.

The first bore hole that Operation Eyesight drilled was in Ongata Naado. It took the people there a bit by surprise, because they couldn’t immediately see the link between water and eye health. The big drilling truck that rolled into town must have had the same impact as a three-ring circus. When the water started gushing out of the ground, everyone showed up to watch in amazement.  One older man was heard to say: “I have seen water from above, but I didn’t know it could come from below!”

The community set up a committee to get the pump and generator installed and fund the rest of the pieces they would need, and they really took ownership. Donors through Operation Eyesight paid for the drilling and brought in technical expertise, but the people of Ongata Naado supplied everything else.

Like a seed sprouting, something was happening among these people – slow at first, but growing. I became aware of it when I returned in 2009. The village didn’t look much different, but the people were energized with plans for the future. Plus, everyone looked healthier and their new water source was in full operation.

Little did I know that the best was yet to come…

Read Part 2 and learn what happens in Ongata Naado.  And if you’d like to help bring water to parched communities, visit our Gift Guide to learn how.

The post Ongata Naado – a village transformed (Part 1 of 2) appeared first on Operation Eyesight.