The opportunity to become a community health worker gave Amita the fulfillment she always wanted. She is so happy that it allows her to help people in her community. She’s educated people to understand that superstitions do not affect health issues.

Also, she’s helped them learn what they need to do to look after their own eye health. She has become a respected expert in the area where she lives.

“Now whenever people have problems with their eyes, they come to me for a solution,” she says proudly.

Your generous support provides training and fulfilling opportunities for women to make a huge difference in their communities! Thank you!

The post Amita is changing lives through a career that changed her life! appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

The whole family depends on Hira’s son, who works as a labourer to make enough for them to get by. To help out, Hira gardens and sews clothing for the family, while taking care of her two granddaughters.

She was happy she could contribute at home, but she was able to help less and less over time, as her vision dimmed. She felt like there was some invisible film over her eyes that she couldn’t blink away, and it only got worse. Two years later, she was completely blind.

“I was too afraid to seek treatment,” says Hira. “My sister had cataract surgery done that left her blind, and she died blind. I was so afraid the same thing would happen to me.”

But our donors made it possible to help Hira through her fear.

Two community health workers arrived at Hira’s home and screened her eyes. They explained that her condition could be treated, and they counselled her on the procedures that would restore her sight. Then they referred her to an Operation Eyesight-established vision centre for examination.

Though she was afraid, Hira did go to the vision centre, where she was diagnosed with bilateral cataracts. She was then referred to Nepal Eye Hospital for surgery.

Hira still wasn’t convinced. “I was so afraid, but the community health workers introduced me to an older man who had received sight-restoring cataract surgery himself. His story calmed me, and finally I felt brave enough to get treated.”

Now, thanks to the support of eye health heroes like YOU, Hira’s sight has been restored!

“I am very happy about the treatment I received! Now I can do my daily activities on my own. My family can concentrate on their work, and I can help them when they need me.” 

Hira is now an eye health advocate in her own community! She is so grateful to the community health workers and the doctor who helped her regain her sight.

And most of all, she’s grateful to kind people like you who made it all possible!

Thank you so much for helping people like Hira get their lives back through the precious gift of sight! There are still thousands more women like Hira who need your help. Donate today and become an eye health hero.

The post From fearful blindness to joyous sight appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Declaring villages avoidable blindness-free is the pinnacle of our work. We’re ecstatic to say that we declared our 500th village free of avoidable blindness in 2017.

With the help of our partner Gerald A. Cooper-Key Foundation we declared 11 of those villages avoidable blindness-free. In fact, the Director General of Health Services of the Indian government recognized our work in reaching remote areas.

Gerald A. Cooper-Key Foundation also supported more than 500 eye surgeries.

Successful partnerships contribute to our accomplishments. Standard Chartered Bank’s Seeing is Believing supported us in establishing 12 new Vision Centres. With their help we passed another landmark when we opened our 100th Vision Centre. We’re delighted to report that by the end of the year we’d opened 108 Vision Centres.

We’re also grateful for the continued support from Bharat Financial Inclusion. Thanks to their generosity we performed more than 5,000 cataract surgeries in eight Indian states.

On the technology front, our partnership with Pellucid Inc, a Singapore based eye tech firm, is thriving. With Pellucid technology:

• 60 Vision Centres are reporting online.
• 30 tablets are using a tracking application to cover household surveys for 750,000 people.

We continue to be recognized as eye health care experts. Last year Operation Eyesight’s Dr. Santosh Moses, Regional Manager for South Asia was elected Vice President to the Executive Committee of VISION 2020 India. Also, Operation Eyesight was nominated to the Universal Eye Health Committee of the Government of Odisha.

And for fun, our Indian team marathoners ran in the Airtel Hyderabad Marathon. Raising an impressive $11,000, Operation Eyesight was recognized as an official charity for the marathon. The fun’raising was the easy part and our team did the hard part — running distances ranging between 10 and 42.2 km. Remarkable!

In addition, we expanded our Community-Based Diabetic Retinopathy project to two new cities last year — Udgir, Maharashtra and Udaipur, Rajasthan.

Thanks to our amazing donors India had a dynamic year!

Thanks to Gerald A. Cooper-Key Foundation and the Koehle Family Trust, these Vision Centres are permanent facilities. Each Vision Centre is now financially self-sustaining and provides eye care services in areas where none existed. Also, with Gerald A. Cooper-Key Foundation support, we’re proud to announce the inauguration of the upgraded out-patient department at Fateh-Bal Eye Hospital last year.

We’re just getting started in Nepal, and our future in the country promises to give new-found hope and freedom to thousands of people.

We couldn’t do it without our loyal donors. Thank you!

Our momentum continues in Nepal as we move into our second year working in the county. With great support from our donors and partners, we trained 14 new eye health care staff. Working with Nepal Eye Hospital and Fateh-Bal Eye Hospital we established three new Vision Centres linked to these hospitals.

Thank you for making 2017 another fantastic year!

The post 2017 Was An Exciting Year For South Asia, Thanks To You! appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Em was suffering from depression after her husband passed away. She was heartbroken, and nothing felt right. She was lonely, as most of her children had already moved out into their own homes, all but one of her daughters.

Living in Nepal and struggling to get by on what little income she and her daughter could make doing farm work, 83-year-old Em was devastated when her vision started to fade.

Without her sight, she had to depend on her daughter to care for her, but someone needed to make an income to afford their living. Many days went by with Em left alone at home, sad and afraid.

Em and her daughter thought there was no cure – it wasn’t uncommon for the elderly to lose their sight in their advanced years. They thought there was nothing to be done, and Em feared that her life as she knew it had ended.

She so missed going over to visit with her neighbours, but since her sight started failing her, she no longer recognized their faces. And without her daughter to guide her, she couldn’t get around on her own. One time, she fell down the stairs of her home! And sometimes she would trip in pot holes in the streets.

For Em, daily life became dangerous and scary.

“I was fearful about what was happening in my life. I was having trouble doing even the simplest things and I hated to constantly trouble my daughter. She had already done so much for me…”

Em’s daughter was also affected by her mother’s condition. She used to love to paint and sew in her free time, but between working and taking care of her mother, Em’s daughter rarely had time left over. Em felt terrible – she truly missed watching her daughter paint and sew.

This went on for two long years, and Em could barely stand it… Until something incredible happened. Something made possible by incredible people like you.

Em was visited by a community health worker trained by Operation Eyesight who screened her eyes and referred her for further examination at our partner, the Nepal Eye Hospital. Once there, she was diagnosed with cataract in both eyes and booked for surgery free of charge to Em or her daughter!

“I can’t imagine what my life would have been like had I not been helped. My life would have become so much harder, and my daughter would have needed to look after me even for small daily activities. I was afraid I might not live much longer…”

Em was apprehensive about the treatment at first. According to Em’s daughter, her mother was already on anti-depressant medication, which only worsened her fear of cataract surgery. But after some counselling, Em agreed to the treatment.

“I feel like I have been born again!” Em exclaims. “Now I have hope. I hope that my daughter can go back to painting and sewing, and reclaim her life. I look forward to visiting with the neighbours again, not that I’ve regained my independence.”

Now Em has become an eye health advocate, recommending that others in her village seek help and treatment. “I want others to be as happy as I am, now that I have my sight back. I came from darkness into the light, and I want others to receive that gift too.”

And em isn’t the only one celebrating. Her daughter is so happy too!

“With my mother’s sight restored, now she can recognize her neighbours and friends, she can talk and smile with them. She doesn’t need my help for her daily activities. And most importantly, though it might seem like a small thing, but it always puts a huge smile on my face when she picks small stones from the grains of rice we harvest while I’m working.”

Em and her daughter are so happy. They send their deepest gratitude to people like you who gave them new hope for the future.

“I want to thank the kind donors in Canada for doing such wonderful work in our country and for our community. There are still many more communities that need their help, so please continue doing such great work.”

Thank you so much for all that you do… Thanks to you, Em, her daughter and her community are receiving the eye health education and care they need! Just as Em said, there are still many who need our help. Have you ever considered becoming a monthly donor? Your monthly gift will have a lasting impact, and will ensure that help is always available when it’s needed. Please consider becoming a monthly donor today!

The post June is Cataract Awareness Month – Em’s Story appeared first on Operation Eyesight.