Our Global Director of Programmes, Kashinath Bhoosnurmath, joined Operation Eyesight in 2009. He brought with him a wealth of experience in the field of strategic program development and works with his team in India to develop our programs.

Kash, as we know him, agreed to answer some questions about his role, and he had a lot to say!

Q: You’ve worked with a variety of development organizations, including Aide et Action France and Save The Children UK. How does Operation Eyesight stand out as a development organization?

Kash: The organizations I’ve worked for in the past facilitated my growth as a development thinker and gave a proper shape to my value system. I respect them tremendously. Though there are overlaps in terms of their thematic focus areas, they are quite different when it comes to their approaches to programme development.

Operation Eyesight is no different from them. The differences are in terms of size and impact. We are a small organization with limited resources, yet we are very impactful in what we do. The approaches and models that we have developed result in actual elimination of avoidable blindness from the geographic area of coverage.

Blind people walk into hospitals in the morning and they walk out with their eyesight restored the following morning. One can see the change taking place in the lives of the needy with a great sense of satisfaction.

Q: As Global Director of Programmes, how do you see your role in contributing to the end of avoidable blindness?

Kash: Operation Eyesight has been intervening since 1963 and in the process has laid strong foundations for making avoidable blindness history. My job is to build on these foundations, develop models and approaches that are effective and feasible and scale them up in all the countries of our intervention.

I work closely with our country programme teams and support them with strategic advice and capacity building inputs. I represent Operation Eyesight with key stakeholders, such as national governments, and get their commitment to eliminate avoidable blindness. My constant endeavour is to make best use of our resources and ensure that returns on the investments made by our donors and supporters are the highest in the sector.

Q: You began working with Operation Eyesight in 2009 as Senior Director responsible for our India program. How have our Indian programs evolved since then?

Kash: I started learning the fundamental lesson related to blindness soon after I joined Operation Eyesight. What started as awe and admiration for the wonderful work that Operation Eyesight had been doing since 1963, turned into a paradox and concern as I went around the country and visited our partner hospitals. All the hospitals without any exception delivered very high quality services. I felt proud that our mantra was quality. These hospitals treated the poor patients without charging them – completely free of cost. I felt convinced that I was in the right organization.

But soon I also learned from our partners that there were still quite a number of people who were going blind in the hospitals’ service areas. We decided to crack this paradox and eventually developed, piloted and successfully scaled up a model to eliminate avoidable blindness on a sustainable basis. We have named this model our Hospital-Based Community Health Programme.

As a result of this model, we are no longer referred to as a donor agency in India. We are now a knowledge-driven agency and our technical expertise is sought by eye hospitals across the country. In fact, most of our partnerships in India are non-financial in the sense that our partner hospitals receive no funding support from Operation Eyesight. Our success in India can be easily gauged through the number of villages that we have declared as “avoidable blindness free.” There are currently 65 and the number will soon exceed 100.

Another evolution in India is related to the establishment of Vision Centres that provide primary eye care services at the community level. These Vision Centres become financially self-sustainable within six to 12 months of their establishment, treat primary eye disease at the door steps of the target communities and ensure that those with other eye related diseases are treated in the base hospitals to which they are linked. We now have 77 Vision Centres in India, and we are currently in the process of transferring our expertise into the countries in Africa where Operation Eyesight works.

Q: What is something that’s happening in one of Operation Eyesight’s partners that excites you?

Kash: Many of our partners are doing path-breaking, meaningful work. One example is our partner Siliguri Greater Lions Eye Hospital in India, which receives technical support from us. Thanks to the committed team of community based health workers and excellent support that the hospital management has been extending, we are going to declare 226 villages with a total population of over 100,000 people as avoidable blindness free.

I personally consider this a major milestone that we have successfully crossed by developing a model and demonstrating that it is possible to eliminate avoidable blindness on a sustainable basis. I have not known any other agency that has achieved a similar success. What makes me all the more happy is that there are another 35 projects that we are implementing currently and all of them are on course to eliminate avoidable blindness on a sustainable basis.

What we are doing through our Trachoma Elimination Programme in Kenya and Zambia is also exemplary. When I visit the field and interact with the target communities in these countries, I realize that what we are doing there is not just about eliminating blindness. Because of the provision of clean water, which is an integral part of our intervention, women and children do not have to walk long distances to fetch drinking water. Personal hygiene standards have improved significantly. Isn’t it fantastic that our blindness programme also means education for children and access to health care facilities for the communities?

Q: What do you find most enjoyable about your work?

Kash: I find joy in finding new solutions and approaches. The fact that we are the only organization having achieved this feat [of promoting villages as avoidable blindness on a sustainable basis] places us in the leadership position, so that certainly makes me feel proud. But that also makes me feel even more responsible. There is so much more to be done!

The need is still great, but we know that under Kash’s leadership – and with continuous support from our donors – we can eliminate avoidable blindness once and for all! For more information on our international programs and projects, visit our website.

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Not only was I able to see our “founding family,” the Jenkyns family, honoured as the Outstanding Philanthropic Family by the Calgary chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, but I found myself overcome with warmth and gratitude towards the spirit of philanthropy in general.

Sitting in the large banquet room, surrounded by thousands of philanthropists, donors and peers, was humbling for me. There was so much generosity and community spirit in the room; so many people who volunteer their energy, time and money to causes meaningful to their hearts. It was revitalizing!

Over and over, I heard representatives from other worthy not-for-profits, including the food bank, ending homelessness, and cancer research, reinforce that they share with Operation Eyesight the desire to strengthen the community, to give back some of the many gifts we enjoy in our own lives, and to ultimately make the world a healthier, safer, happier place for all.

Our own guiding philosophy – “the best for the poorest” – may not be articulated in every organization, but I think it’s safe to say it is deeply embedded in our collective hearts.

Congratulations once more to the Jenkyns family and to all recipients of the Generosity of Spirit awards! On behalf of all of us at Operation Eyesight, thank you for all you do to make our world a better place.

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“Congratulations on your 50^th anniversary! We here at International Eye Foundation (IEF) can easily appreciate your pride as we just celebrated our own 50^th in 2011.

I knew [Operation Eyesight founder] Art Jenkyns and many of his successors. Operation Eyesight has been a wonderful partner in the fight against avoidable blindness, and I am very pleased to see your emphasis on sustainability planning for eye care institutions. Congratulations on a very successful half century of eye care development. Your leadership in the field is recognized and we congratulate you on your achievements.”

Victoria M. Sheffield

President and CEO, International Eye Foundation

“We have been very impressed by your work in developing countries in providing high quality eye care programmes and promoting community development.

We share the same aspiration for high quality eye and vision care to be a human right accessible to all The worldwide improvement and conservation of human sight benefits from your important work performing vital surgery, funding clinics, providing training and equipment and working with communities to improve their living conditions.”

Tone Garaas-Maurdalen

Former President, World Council of Optometry

“A mother sees her child for the first time in years. A boy returns to school after suffering eye trauma. A grandfather regains his sight after 10 years of needless blindness. Each got a second chance at sight because of the work of Operation Eyesight.

Access to water is crucial to the elimination of trachoma, and Operation Eyesight recently achieved a remarkable goal in Kenya. It met its target of providing 51 water points in Kenya’s Narok district. This was instrumental in reducing the district’s overall prevalence of trachoma from almost 31 percent to 11 percent, a 65 percent improvement.

It is one example of the remarkable impact of Operation Eyesight’s work. Thank you for making a difference in the lives of so many people.”

Danny Haddad, MD

Director, International Trachoma Initiative

“I am delighted to be able to send this message to mark the 50th anniversary of Operation Eyesight. I have had the privilege to visit a great many eye health programmes over the years and few have impressed me as much as those supported by Operation Eyesight. I have always noted the strong commitment to work at the community level and the investment in time to get real ownership of the project amongst local government and communities – to my mind the secret behind all good sustainable development work.  Over the years, Operation Eyesight has made a huge contribution to the elimination of avoidable blindness in the world, and I wish the organisation every success for its future; the work you do just could not be more important.”

Peter Ackland

CEO, International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness

To read more letters of congratulation that we’ve received, click here.

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When one of the world’s most active and generous philanthropists stresses the importance of evaluation, people sit up and pay attention.

Earlier this week on the Gates Foundation website, Bill Gates focussed his 2013 annual letter on “Measuring Progress.” He wrote, “In the past year, I have been struck by how important measurement is to improving the human condition. You can achieve incredible progress if you set a clear goal and find a measure that will drive progress toward that goal….”

This topic really encouraged us. Measurement happens to be a fundamental element of Operation Eyesight’s philosophy.

We too believe that providing health care in developing countries shouldn’t mean settling for substandard care. Since our beginning in 1963, our international development organization has had a long history of providing “the best for the poorest” in the countries where we work; and today, our eye care models meet or exceed World Health Organization (WHO) standards and benchmarks.

To use some of Gates’ words, “… setting clear goals, choosing an approach, measuring results, and then using those measurements to continually refine our approach…” has helped Operation Eyesight develop models and services appropriate for all the countries where we work. In India, our Hospital-Based Community Eye Health programs are a stellar example of this, as is our SAFE strategy implementation in Africa.

We also make sure our results don’t end with our own programs. Operation Eyesight nurtures strong partnerships with hospitals and NGOs that have a reputation for leadership. All our partners must agree to use international health and surgical protocols with an objective to achieving international standards in results. Such measurements are critical to developing eye care that is comprehensive, sustainable and accessible to all.

As Gates notes, “[O]ne of the greatest benefits of measurement [is] the ability it gives government leaders to make comparisons across countries and then learn from the best.” We work closely with governments and systems within our countries of intervention, so that our models can be emulated, supported and potentially sustained within government infrastructure.

It all boils down to working ourselves out of business; when we feel our work in a country or project is complete, we move on to another area of greatest need. Today, as we celebrate 50 years of operations, we are seeing the benefits of our commitment to evaluation in our programs.

Operation Eyesight is confident that our successful models of comprehensive, quality eye services will provide the answer to the age-old tragedy of avoidable blindness.

We’d like to thank Mr. Gates for focusing attention on the important topic of evaluation. We look forward to more of his insights in the future!

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