Photos by Ming Emma Ko.

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Because of you, millions of people have avoided becoming needlessly blind. Girls and boys go to school, learn their ABCs, and play with their classmates. Men and women provide for their families and go about their lives. They have brighter futures because of you.

Here are just a few of our 2011 highlights.

In India, 2011 was the first full year of operations for our hospital-based community eye health programs, which are designed to provide comprehensive eye care and blindness prevention to India’s poorest. Last year, the programs screened almost 40,000 people and provided education in child care, nutrition and general health to almost 250,000 people.

This is a remarkable achievement, given that our health education program reached just 18,000 people in 2010.

Another 2011 highlight was the opening of India’s Little Flower Hospital eye department building. It will be a “centre of excellence” to serve the 32 million people in Kerala and surrounding states.

In Africa, we met our four-year target of completing 51 waterpoints in Kenya’s Narok district, including the amazing transformation of Ongata Naado. The tiny village went from a dusty, dry outpost with a ramshackle school to a progressive community with gardens, a water distribution service and a brand new school for 650 students. How? Operation Eyesight donors invested in a borehole and educating the community about taking care of this precious resource. See the pictures and read the full two-part story here and here.

Ongata Naado is just one example of more than 40 communities in Kenya and 50 in Zambia with similar stories – all because they worked with Operation Eyesight over the past several years. This is the kind of difference you are making to some of the world’s poorest people.

Our 2011 Report to Donors tells the full story of all that we accomplished together. As you read the report, I hope you’ll be as excited and as interested as I was! After all, it’s all thanks to you.

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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.

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