For 17-year-old Jennifer from Ghana, blurred vision made it difficult to keep up in class — until a simple pair of eyeglasses changed her life. 

“I first noticed that I could not see objects clearly at a distance,” recalls Jennifer, who attends school in the Mfantseman District of Ghana’s Central Region. For three years, she struggled in silence, telling no one about her condition. As her vision worsened, she began relying on classmates to help her read the blackboard. 

Relief came when Operation Eyesight hosted an eye health screening at her school. Diagnosed with a serious refractive error, Jennifer received a pair of prescription eyeglasses, free of charge.

Today, Jennifer is thriving and optimistic about her future. “I am happy with these new spectacles!” she says.

Jennifer’s story is far too common. Globally, nearly 450 million children and adolescents face similar vision challenges that could easily be solved with a pair of prescription eyeglasses. Additionally, 40 per cent of children who are blind could have had their eye conditions prevented with access to eye health care, according to the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB).  

Shining a light on child eye health on World Sight Day

On October 10, the global eye health community will celebrate #WorldSightDay, encouraging everyone to prioritize their eye health. This year’s theme highlights the importance of eye care for children, inspiring young people to ‘love their eyes’.  

“Every day, preventable and treatable eye health issues cause children to miss out on learning and social opportunities,” says Kashinath Bhoosnurmath, President and CEO of Operation Eyesight. “They do not just deserve but have the right to a happy childhood. Healthy eyes enable kids to learn, play, and thrive, setting them on a path for life.”

Untreated vision loss can have lifelong consequences, especially for children in low- and middle- income countries, who are five times less likely to attend school if they have a vision impairment, states the IAPB. Providing accessible and quality eye care helps meet the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of Quality Education (SDG 4) and Good Health & Well-being (SDG 3). 

School Eye Health Programs: Reaching children where they are and raising awareness of programs on World Sight Day

In 2023, Operation Eyesight screened more than 240,000 students at 1,133 schools across South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. By training teachers and healthcare workers to identify vision problems, we ensure youths like Jennifer receive the care they need. 

Child eye health is about more than providing eyeglasses; it’s about creating long-term solutions. In places like Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia, trachoma is a leading cause of vision loss. If left untreated, this bacterial infection can lead to irreversible blindness. Along with mass drug administrations (MDAs) to clear infections, our teams also bring communities local access to fresh water and educate people about the importance of washing their hands, faces and clothing to reduce transmission of the infection. 

Yashwant Sinha, our Director of International Programmes, says Operation Eyesight’s clean water projects have had a ripple effect in the lives of female students. 

“In many communities across sub-Saharan Africa, the task of hauling water falls to women and girls. Local access to fresh water has boosted school attendance, because girls no longer have to spend hours fetching water,” Yashwant says. “In many communities, attendance of girls at school has improved.”

He adds that in Ethiopia, these benefits have been bolstered by Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programs both in the community and at schools, as well as menstrual hygiene training, including how to create reusable sanitary pads using local materials. 

These efforts also support the UN SDGs related to Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6) and Gender Equality (SDG 5). 

A comprehensive approach to eye health

Our work extends beyond schools. Operation Eyesight’s global team of Community Health Workers (CHWs) enables us to be present in the community and reach patients who otherwise would not have access to quality eye health care.

By conducting door-to-door screenings, CHWs help families understand the importance of seeking eye care, ensuring that no man, woman or child goes without eye health screening and referral if needed. Through public health education, we also promote awareness about hygiene and overall health, linking residents with local healthcare resources. 

“Healthy eyes are just one part of a person’s overall health and well-being, and we are also focused on addressing other determinants of eye health,” Yashwant explains.

“Our CHWs and other local staff connect new moms with pre- and post-natal care and also connect families with immunization clinics to help give kids the best start.”

Addressing complex conditions early

Some vision issues, like Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), need intervention much earlier. ROP is one of the leading causes of vision loss in children in India, and preterm infants are at high risk of developing this condition which leads to lifelong blindness. 

Shabana, from a small village in Uttar Pradesh, India, delivered her son Aarsh when she was only seven months pregnant. Thanks to Operation Eyesight’s partnership with C.L. Gupta Eye Institute (CLGEI) in nearby Moradabad city, Aarsh was screened and treated for ROP, saving him from a life without sight.

“Aarsh’s journey is a testament to the transformative power of our ROP screening program,” says Lokesh Chauhan, Deputy General Manager at CLGEI. “Aarsh’s bright eyes now reflect a world of possibilities.”

Ocular cancers such as retinoblastoma not only cause blindness but can also be fatal. In India, retinoblastoma accounts for about three per cent of all cancers affecting children under five, and it is reported in an article in the Indian Journal of Ophthalmology that there are about 1,500 new cases reported each year. 

Timely treatment of this cancer can save the lives of more than nine out of 10 children suffering from this disease, including children like Alok, pictured above. In many cases, a child’s vision can also be saved, but early screening and treatment are essential. Thanks to the help of our generous donors, in 2015, Operation Eyesight, in partnership with LVPEI, opened one of the few facilities in the world that specializes in treating ophthalmic tumours in both children and adults.

Tapobrat Bhuyan, our Programme Manager in India, adds that untreated vision loss can also have long-term effects on children’s self-esteem.

“Clear vision and healthy eyes open the door of possibility. For a child, it’s a chance to have a full childhood, which has long-term impacts for their trajectory in life,” Tapobrat explains. “Vision loss and blindness have been proven to prevent social inclusion and can negatively impact mental health.”

Looking ahead: World Sight Day 2024

Vision is crucial for a child’s development — whether in the classroom, playground, or at home. It’s no surprise that 80 per cent of a child’s learning is visual, according to multiple studies. Wherever they live, access to quality eye health care helps give young people the best possible start in life, paving the way for success for years to come. 

Access to eye health care isn’t just an issue in low- and middle-income countries. Globally, myopia is on the rise. Commonly known as nearsightedness, myopia makes it difficult to see distant objects clearly. The number of children experiencing myopia is increasing, driven by excessive screen time. In 2020, 60 per cent of children in Asia and 50 per cent in Europe had myopia. 

Reducing screen time and scheduling regular eye exams are simple steps we can take to protect our children’s vision. A 2021 study found that extended screen time is associated with a 30 per cent higher risk of myopia, which requires prescription eyeglasses. When combined with excessive computer use, the risk more than doubles, reaching approximately 80 per cent.

In Canada, some provinces offer free eye exams to children and seniors as part of provincial health care. Access to eyeglasses is one of the most effective health interventions for kids.

Download our child eye health resources on our World Sight Day page to learn more and help the children in your life love their eyes.

World Sight Day 2024 is a chance to focus on our kids’ eye health and help children and adolescents everywhere love their eyes.

Help all children love their eyes this World Sight Day

You can also help ensure that no child is left behind due to preventable vision loss. Together, we can create a world where every child has access to quality and affordable eye health care. Make a donation today to help bring sustainable eye health solutions to children living in communities that need them most.

The post World Sight Day 2024: A Focus on Child Eye Health appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Dr. Ghosh brings with her 25 years of experience in directing international development programs, including research, policy development, business, advocacy and health system strengthening, as well as implementing multi-country large-scale health and nutrition programs. She has also led many digital technology initiatives and has experience developing and fostering partnerships between public, private and non-profit sectors.

She has an impressive string of credentials: high impact leadership training at Cambridge University, a PhD in healthcare and nutrition, a double Master’s in social work and English, and a Gold Medalist in Bachelor of Mass Communication, just to name a few.

Dr. Ghosh describes herself as a believer in innovation and transformation. Using the power of data and analytics, she has led many research and behaviour change projects that have helped bring new perspectives to program implementation and evidence-based planning.

If her experience and credentials aren’t enough, Dr. Ghosh is also a poet and has plans to publish an anthology of her Hindi language poems.

I sat down with her recently to talk about her hopes and plans for Operation Eyesight.

Q: Why did you choose to work in eye health, and why did you choose to work with Operation Eyesight?

Dr. Ghosh: I have a passion to contribute to community development; that’s why I originally pursued social work.

Vision loss can impact a person’s independence, mobility and has been linked to injury. It impacts the quality of life as significantly affects mental health, social standing, cognition, employment, even educational attainment, which can in turn impact livelihood, not only among seniors but also in younger generations.

I appreciate the approach that Operation Eyesight is taking when it comes to gender equality and ensuring eye care is available and accessible in the local community, especially through the strategic use of door-to-door surveys and community vision centres.

Operation Eyesight also has a robust gender policy, which ensures that gender perspectives and attention to the goal of gender equality are central across all program models, interventions and partnerships. Numerous studies have shown gender disparity has various negative health outcomes. Many times, women don’t go for checkups because a health facility is not available in the nearby area. When it comes to eye health, affordability, availability and accessibility are significant barriers for women. They can only have equal opportunities to earn, learn and grow when we put them at the centre of the development of all programming, be it in the public or private sectors.

Q: What role does research play in global eye health, and what role do you want to see it play in Operation Eyesight’s work?

Dr. Ghosh:  Research informs the direction, focus areas and interventions of our work. We conduct Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) surveys to understand the local culture, beliefs and community needs, and design the projects accordingly. As a result, the sustainability of our programs is very high.

If we don’t know the impact of our work, we can’t say that our model is successful. Further baseline and endline studies are vital to know the impact of our programs, without which we would be unable to declare entire villages avoidable blindness-free. We should measure impact quantitatively as well as in qualitative terms, like improved health-seeking behaviours, adherence to spectacles, improved WASH practices, etc.  

Operation Eyesight also engages in advocacy in order to influence government policies and strengthen national guidelines. In many countries, eye health data is not available, and we have a chance to build eye health indicators in a country’s government database and track progress in different districts and provinces. One major gap here is the need for more gender disaggregated data to show whether women are accessing services or not. For example, if we say 40 people received cataract surgery but don’t know the gender breakdown, maybe it’s 35 males and only five females.

Q: We know that eye health is linked with many other development issues. How do these areas factor into our work?

Dr. Ghosh: Eye health cuts across the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Poverty and hunger are a good example. If a person becomes blind, there is impact on their livelihood, for both them and their entire family; if one person loses their sight, their entire family suffers.

Similarly, when it comes to empowerment of women and women’s health, without empowering women to access eye health and other health services, we can’t move towards that goal. Similarly, when it comes to primary education, we know that if a child can’t see the blackboard, they cannot learn and study. So, the distribution of prescription eyeglasses is a key contributor to this goal.

I would like us to further enhance our research to see how we can understand eye health as well as its determinants, such as maternal health, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programs, immunization and nutrition. Therefore, if we – civil society and governments – all focus on enhancing access to eye health, it will help achieve the global SDGs.

Q: The world is changing quickly. What’s the biggest challenge we now face as an organization when it comes to achieving our mission and vision?

Dr. Ghosh: A number of things have changed since the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, I observed that entire health systems were jeopardized. The primary focus of many governments shifted to how to control the spread of COVID-19. As a result, other health programs were frequently put on the backburner. The need of the hour is for governments and other sectors to refocus on other health areas, including eye health.

The question we need to ask is: how do we strengthen health systems, so that eye health is mainstreamed?

Across the board, people are spending more time on screens. This is impacting people’s health, especially their eyes. Increasingly, people are using digital technology as the primary way to interface and get information, so we as an organization have to move at the pace the world is moving. That’s why we’re planning to use digital survey tools, digital behaviour change communications, digital job aids, digital training module with digital messaging, because this is the way forward. Moreover, technological excellence such as teleophthalmology is necessary to adopt to reach more communities in far-flung areas, because this is the way forward. We are now mixing both approaches of digital and interpersonal communication to access patients and families, and we are considering how we can enhance services and further strengthen health systems.

We customize our programs based on the needs of individual countries. Therefore, our digital strategy also needs to be tailored to the communities where we work. For example, many rural areas have limited Internet access, and in many areas women face barriers to accessing digital technology. So, if we want to convey messages to women in these areas, we need to see which tool and medium is really useful for them. Literacy rates are also important to consider; some areas where illiteracy is prevalent may require visual or audio messages in the local language to understand our messages.

Q: When it comes to tailoring our approach in each country, how does that work?

Dr. Ghosh: Our country directors are our change champion. They work on the frontlines as the face of Operation Eyesight. There are lots of opportunities for them to develop strategic partnerships with like-minded agencies, develop coalitions, identify capacity building needs with partner hospitals and their staff, develop appropriate training modules and build partnerships with governments.

Our country teams are at the forefront of quality program delivery; without them we couldn’t do what we do. When our staff, partners and donors are working in sync, we are able to contribute meaningfully to global eye health in different countries.

Q: What do you most want to achieve at Operation Eyesight?

Dr. Ghosh: I have a number of goals, the first being to reach more communities.  

Second, I want us to have multi-country research that includes different parameters, besides just eye health, with increased emphasis on evidence-based planning, to deliver care to more communities in hard-to-reach areas. We will also focus on behavior change interventions, so that communities are able to take charge of their own eye health.

All of this work will help build the capacity of partner hospitals and staff, while delivering cost-effective program models that can be scaled up quickly in different contexts in regions in Africa and Asia. Globally, we will focus on health system strengthening in the public and private sectors.

Third, I hope to develop the donor base in our countries of work and identify in-country partnership opportunities, with governments, hospitals, local leaders, corporations and like-minded partners. In the long run, I want to see Operation Eyesight version 2.0, where we cater to more countries and are having a ripple effect in a range of other development areas. We just celebrated our 60-year milestone as an organization, and as we continue to adapt and grow in an ever-changing world, I think our future is very bright.

The post Global leadership, local perspectives  appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Blindness is a gender issue. Blindness discriminates. Fifty-five per cent of the world’s blind are women and girls. More than 20 million women and girls are blind, and 120 million are visually impaired. Four out of five people who are blind don’t need to be.

And this injustice is magnified in developing countries. Women face additional barriers to accessing eye care that men don’t: lack of education, limited decision-making power, restricted access to financial resources and a lower perceived priority.

One reason for the disparity is that women live longer than men, so they are more likely to develop age-related, non-communicable eye diseases such as cataract, glaucoma and macular degeneration. But despite the fact that more women than men are affected by the condition, cataract surgery rates are lower for women.

And this is only part of the picture.

Women and girls are at greater risk of contracting trachoma, an infectious eye disease that leads to irreversible blindness. Seventy per cent of those affected by blinding trachoma are women. Very young children are at risk for trachoma, and three times as many girls as boys suffer from it.

Women and girls are at increased risk for infectious eye diseases because of their traditional roles. Women and girls carry the burden of taking care of their relatives who suffer from trachoma or other eye conditions. Not only does this increase their risk of contracting trachoma themselves, but it often limits their opportunities to go to school or find employment.

Women who are blind carry the double burden of discrimination because of their disability and their gender, which can lead to social exclusion. This impacts their ability to do day-to-day activities, increases their risk of injury, and leaves them more vulnerable to violence and depression.

To achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the World Health Organization’s VISION 2020 goals, eye care programs must eliminate all forms of inequity in access to eye care for women and girls. Eye care programs must recognize that women and girls have different needs, preferences and constraints, and women and girls should be at the centre of eye health programming.

Organizations must work with local communities to understand the barriers women face, take affirmative action in training and human resource development to ensure there are more women in the health care system, and remove the barriers to access to services. In addition, programs should integrate eye health services into maternal and reproductive health facilities to give pregnant women access to eye health screening that is not provided routinely, and provide outreach to villages where eye disease remains largely undiagnosed and untreated.

Operation Eyesight works with local hospital and government partners to provide quality eye care services to everyone – regardless of gender, age, ability to pay or other personal circumstances – while working to address the many root causes of avoidable blindness and remove barriers to health care, specifically and deliberately targeting the barriers for women and girls.

I’m especially proud of our focus on community outreach and education. We train community health workers – women who live and work in our target communities – to conduct door-to-door eye screenings and educate families about eye health and general health topics such as prenatal care, nutrition and immunization. This approach allows us to reach women and girls who might otherwise go unreached, ensuring those with eye health issues are referred to a partner hospital or vision centre for treatment.

Community health workers also refer women and their families to primary health care facilities for pre/postnatal care, vitamin A supplementation, immunizations, etc. These are just a few examples of how we’re embedding SDG 5: Gender Equality into our everyday work.

Stats on blindness and women retrieved from the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, Seva Canada, this article in BMJ Open Ophthalmology and this article in Ophthalmic Epidemiology.

A variation of this article was previously published on CCIC’s website for Gender Equality Week.

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In Canada, it can be easy to take for granted that our families have fresh, safe water for drinking, cooking and bathing. In developing countries, safe water often isn’t easily available. You probably can imagine that drinking contaminated water can lead to sickness and death, but did you know that a lack of clean water can also lead to blinding diseases such as trachoma?

The task of hauling fresh water for long distances most commonly falls to women and girls. This time-consuming activity takes away from other important tasks, such as education, employment and spending time with family. Depending on the area, the journey can also be dangerous, and the water from unprotected sources may not be safe.

Thanks to our generous donors, we’ve drilled and installed 126 new boreholes in Zambia in areas where clean water was desperately needed. Donors like you made it possible to train and empower people in these communities to maintain the boreholes and improve sanitation habits, reducing the occurrence of serious illness and trachoma over time.

We’re also working on restoring dysfunctional boreholes. Towards the end of 2018, 19 boreholes were rehabilitated in Zambia’s Sinazongwe District, with plans for more to come. Women and girls, who no longer need to spend hours hauling water, are given greater opportunities to learn, earn money and spend time with family and friends. Thanks to YOU, the people in these villages have access to safe water! They can wash their hands and faces and prevent the spread of trachoma.

Children in Mukka village, Zambia were very excited to feel water coming out of a borehole that had been dry for years!

Thank you for support, and happy (early) Water Day!

Help transform the future of more communities in need with the gift of sight by making a donation today!

The post Rehabilitated boreholes are revitalizing communities and creating new opportunities for women! appeared first on Operation Eyesight.