Priya in Nepal can’t remember when she first started having trouble seeing, but her vision kept deteriorating until one day she fell and injured herself while climbing the steep trail leading from the village to her house. Figuring that blindness was an inevitable part of old age, she stayed at home, unable to visit friends and grandchildren. Eventually she couldn’t even reach the outhouse without assistance. She felt like a burden to her family.

Mary, in Kenya, loved school from her very first day in the classroom and dreamed of becoming a teacher someday. After she turned 13, she started having trouble reading the chalk board. She had to copy notes from her friends and couldn’t do her homework in the dim light at her house. Her grades began to slip. She asked her parents to take her to an eye doctor, but money was too tight because they were saving to send her brother to college. By age 15, Mary quit school and decided to get married, her hopes of teaching now crushed.

None of these characters are real, but they represent the millions of women and girls around the world who are living with avoidable vision loss and blindness. We hear stories like these every day.

The prevalence of vision loss is higher among women and girls than it is for men and boys; 55 per cent of people experiencing vision loss are female. And while there are some biological factors at play, the reasons for these discrepancies are largely social.

Why women and girls experience more vision impairment

Women live on average longer than men, and many conditions that rob people of their sight are associated with old age. This includes cataract, presbyopia, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration. According to estimates, two-thirds of cataract blindness globally occurs in women.

Traditional gender roles are another factor, especially in some regions.

Women and girls are two to four times more likely than men and boys to get trachoma – the leading infectious cause of blindness worldwide. Trachoma is caused by bacteria that spreads through contact on hands and clothing. Small children are especially susceptible, and in turn, they often pass it on to their caretakers. Women and girls may also get infected from household cleaning and doing laundry.

Obstacles to eye health care access

The barriers to health care for women and girls vary widely from region to region, but there are trends that we can observe across the countries where we work. These include:

• Cost and lack of financial decision-making capacity: Men often control the family finances. Women are less likely to work outside the home, meaning that the men and boys in their family who earn an income are often prioritized for spending on treatment.
• Limited healthcare infrastructure: In some regions, particularly in rural areas, inadequate healthcare infrastructure makes it difficult for women and girls to access eye care. The cost or lack of public transportation to the nearest facilities can exacerbate this problem for many women and girls, as can the social taboos and safety risks presented by travelling alone.
• Family responsibilities: Running a household and taking care of family members, duties that often fall on women, can make it challenging for women to take the time they need to get eye care.
• Lack of information: Unequal access to education for women and girls contributes to lower literacy rates and educational levels, which make it more difficult for women to learn about a specific eye condition or find out where they can get it treated.
• Cultural stigmas: Cultural norms and stigmas surrounding health issues, particularly eye health, can dissuade women from getting help. These cultural barriers may result in delayed or avoided medical attention.
• Lack of female healthcare professionals: A shortage of female healthcare professionals in the eye care sector can create discomfort for women and girls, potentially discouraging them from seeking assistance.

Addressing these diverse challenges is crucial for breaking down the barriers that prevent women and girls from accessing essential eye health care services.

Working toward gender equality

Our approach, called the “Hospital-Based Community Eye Health Program Model,” is designed to address inequalities to accessing eye health care, starting at the village level.

Most of the community health workers trained by Operation Eyesight’s partner hospitals are women, which gives them the opportunity to become trusted leaders in their communities and helps them contribute to family finances. They also bring eye health screenings to people’s doorsteps, meaning that women and girls don’t need to travel to get primary eye care and referrals.

Additionally, we work with our partner hospitals to establish vision centres closer to the communities where we work, making it easier for everyone to access diagnosis and treatment. Our partner hospitals also provide safe transportation for patients – usually by bus – to the hospital so that they can get their surgeries without worrying about how they’ll get there.

Finally, by providing surgeries, eyeglasses and other treatments free of charge – or at a highly subsidized rate – we can decrease some of the financial barriers women and girls face. We strive to provide quality eye care services to everyone – regardless of gender, age, ability to pay or other personal circumstances.

Dismantling gender-related eye health myths in the foothills of the Himalayas

In the villages of the Udhampur block in Jammu region, vision problems are often seen as a sign of bad luck. A girl wearing glasses might be told she’ll never have a good marriage, and a baby’s bad eyesight might be blamed on past life sins. A girl with a squint could be seen as a curse for the whole family.

Those are some of the beliefs a recent pilot project took aim at.

Created in partnership with NorQuest College and the Rotary Eye & ENT Hospital, the project provided services through a “Mobile Vision Centre” – a four-wheel-drive van staffed with an eye health team comprised mostly of women. The van roamed the area’s rugged roads, bringing primary eye care and education to people’s doorsteps.

More than 27,000 people received training pertaining to eye health myths during the project duration. A before-and-after survey that checked people’s attitudes and beliefs regarding eye health for girls and women showed dramatic differences after the intervention. With that success in mind, our teams are looking to implement strategies from the project throughout our programs.

Donate today to help us bring quality eye health care to more women and girls.

The post Gender inequalities in vision loss appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Clean water is essential for general health, eye health included. Without readily-available clean water, people can’t wash or sanitize, causing the spread of diseases.

In Zambia, there are still thousands of children, women and men who are suffering from the blinding disease, trachoma.

Trachoma is the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness. Caused by bacterial infection, it spreads easily through contact with eye discharge from infected people on hands, towels and clothing, and also through direct transmission by flies. Children are most susceptible to trachoma, and because of their role as primary caregivers, women are three times more likely than men to be blinded by the disease.

But there’s a solution! The SAFE strategy.

Thanks to your support, we’ll ramp up our efforts to implement the SAFE strategy to eliminate blinding trachoma in Zambia. SAFE stands for Surgery, Antibiotics, Face washing and hygiene education, and Environmental change.

Thanks to you, we’ll develop borehole programs in vulnerable communities in Zambia. Establishing each borehole program will include identifying a viable location; drilling the borehole; analyzing the water quality; training and equipping local villagers as pump minders; monitoring and evaluating the program; building the capacity of the village water committee; distributing antibiotics, and educating the community on eye health and general health.

By providing villages with fresh water, not only will you help improve sanitation and prevent the spread of trachoma and other disease, but you’ll also provide families with the means to grow crops and raise livestock. And by supporting our community outreach and eye health education programs, you’ll also help us identify those with eye problems and refer them for treatment.

In addition, the provision of fresh water assists in the development of education. Villages with fresh water attract teachers and, as children (especially girls) will no longer have to spend long hours walking to find water, they’ll be able to attend school. In the coming years, entire communities will be transformed, thanks to you!

What has our team in Zambia been up to so far this year?

Now that the rainy season has ended, we’re conducting needs assessments in Sinazongwe district and surrounding districts to identify communities at greatest risk of trachoma and to begin identifying viable drilling locations. We’re working with the Ministry of Local Government and Housing to determine the number of households and the total population that will benefit from the boreholes. Depending on the needs of the districts, we’ll select our target communities.

We’re also in discussions with the Department of Water Affairs to see if we can partner with them again. In the past, they’ve contributed to our borehole projects, allowing us to expand our work to additional communities.

We promote community buy-in right from the start. Once our target communities have been identified, we’ll engage with community members to ensure they take ownership of the project, and to collaboratively develop borehole programs based on the specific needs of each community.

With all our programs, our goal is to educate communities and empower them to take responsibility for their eye health needs. In doing so, we can create sustainable programs that communities will continue to benefit from, even after our formal partnership with them has ended. By investing in communities at the onset of the program, we can ensure that your generous gifts will be used in the best possible way!

Your support will help hundreds of thousands in Zambia, but there’s still more work to be done! Please help us continue the fight against avoidable blindness by giving a gift. Thank you for all your support — For All the World to See!

The post Together we’ll wash away blindness in Zambia! appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

As in our Kenyan projects, we’re also implementing the full SAFE strategy in our work in Zambia, with 2016 seeing great progress in these programs. We successfully drilled 22 boreholes in Sinazongwe, bringing our total number of boreholes in the district to 96. These boreholes serve as many as 48,000 people, or 40 percent of the district population. It’s amazing what one borehole can do!

In 2016, we concentrated our efforts in Mweenda, the largest ward in Sinazongwe district. Our goal is to declare Mweenda trachoma blindness-free by the end of 2017!

To establish each borehole program, we partnered with the Ministry of Health and local Water Affairs Department; identified a viable location; drilled the borehole; analyzed the water quality; monitored and evaluated the program; trained the village water committee; and educated the community on sanitation, eye health and general health.

We also trained and equipped 30 local villagers as pump minders, who repaired 15 dysfunctional boreholes originally drilled by other international NGOs. The pump minders now have the knowledge to maintain the boreholes in their communities, which will ensure our trachoma programs are sustainable.

In partnership with the Ministry of Health, we conducted our third Mass Drug Administration of antibiotics to treat and prevent the spread of trachoma infection. Distribution coverage of the antibiotic was 95 percent, and we reached many small islands in Lake Kariba, where children and adults received antibiotics for the first time.

Not only has implementation of the SAFE strategy helped prevent blindness, but it has also provided other important benefits. Improved sanitation has reduced other serious illnesses such as malaria, diarrheal diseases, upper respiratory infections and skin diseases.

By preventing the chronic recurrence of trachoma in children, and by eliminating the need for children to travel long distances to fetch household water before going to school, we’ve contributed to an increase in school attendance for both girls and boys. The presence of water close by has led to the construction of schools, encouraging teachers to accept postings at these schools!

Established water points have also reduced the number of human-animal conflicts. With a safe water source nearby, people are no longer at risk of crocodiles or other animal predators that may be lurking in rivers or lakes.

And finally, a reliable water source has given communities the ability to irrigate crops, grow vegetable gardens and raise healthier livestock, thus improving nutrition and providing a means to earn an income.

Not only are you helping restore sight, you’re helping improve quality of life for thousands!

We’re so grateful for everything people like you are making possible. Together we have changed millions of lives, and together we can change millions more! Please help us continue with our fight against avoidable blindness, and consider making a gift through our Gift Guide. No gift is too small! Together we can eliminate avoidable blindness – For All the World to See!

The post 2016 was an incredible year in Zambia – Thanks to you! appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Many young girls in rural Zambia are not as fortunate. Every day, these girls have to worry about how long it will take to fetch clean water for their families, whether they can make the trip in time to go to school – and how they can stay safe from animal predators during a trek that can be several kilometers long!

In the Southern Province of Zambia in the Sinazongwe district, there’s no easy access to clean water. Although sparsely populated, many villages are situated in the mountainous part of the district that receives very little rainfall each year.

In the past, the communities were only able to obtain drinking water from shallow wells, dug in the banks of perennial river beds. Some of the villages are near freshwater Lake Kariba – but that lake is also infested with hungry crocodiles! Certainly not an ideal situation.

Until recently, if a community couldn’t afford to pay to drill their own borehole, they were forced to share their limited water supply with livestock. Proximity to the cattle and goats also brought flies, which led to the spread of sickness and disease like blinding trachoma.

In areas where water is scarce, it’s usually women and girls who are responsible for fetching water. This often involves long, exhausting walks to and from the water source – usually with the very real danger of being attacked by wild animals. In the Sinazongwe district, it was so dangerous that not a week would go by without hearing of a life lost due to animal predators! It meant girls either missed a lot of school or weren’t enrolled at all.

I’m sure many girls thought that they’d never be able to improve their futures. But thankfully, we have amazing donors who are committed to changing this situation. Because of the incredible generosity of people like you, 96 water boreholes to date have been drilled in the district!

Operation Eyesight’s well programs are so much more than simply drilling a hole in the ground. Establishing each well program includes:

• identifying a viable location;
• drilling the borehole;
• analyzing the water quality;
• training and equipping local villagers as pump minders;
• monitoring and evaluating the program;
• mobilizing the community and building the capacity of the village water committee;
• distributing antibiotics to fight the blinding eye disease, trachoma; and
• educating the community on eye health and general health.

Having ready access to clean potable (drinkable) water provides families with enough water that they can spare some for washing hands and faces – and this improved hygiene, in turn, helps prevent disease. And being closer to water also helps free up enough time from their household duties for girls to attend school.

Today, many more girls in the district are attending classes safely and on time. They go to school with plastic containers so they can carry water home from the borehole when their classes end. They know going to school means they can learn to read and write, which will improve their chances for a better life someday.

The girls at Nyanga school in Sinazongwe are especially grateful and excited to continue their studies. “We are still in the primary school, and we look forward to continuing with our education to become teachers or nurses so we can also help our people in this district.”

And all this progress was made possible by generous people just like you. Thank you!

You can help give more girls the chance to live their childhood, to follow their dreams and build a future for themselves. Help provide them with clean water – give a donation and support our water programs today!

The post Fresh water can restore girls’ futures! appeared first on Operation Eyesight.