During September, Aly will be visiting our project countries to meet with our international team and participate in 30 days of jam-packed activities, including inaugurating a vision centre, visiting an avoidable blindness-free village, touring some of our partner hospitals and participating in meetings with our staff, partners and eye health colleagues.

With so much ahead, we’re eager to follow Aly’s travels on social media, as he’ll be tweeting live updates when he can. Follow him on Twitter to stay up-to-date!

Aly will be representing our Canadian team and donors during his travels. “This trip is an opportunity for me to communicate the gratitude of our Calgary team and all our donors to our international teams for the work they do,” he says. “And also to connect our Calgary team with our international teams and strengthen the bonds between us.”

But this trip won’t just be business for Aly. “On a personal level, I’m representing my family. This is a chance for my parents and grandparents to give back to our home country through me. I haven’t been back to East Africa since moving to Edmonton with my family as refugees when I was two years old.” Aly says he’ll be carrying his family history with him as he sets foot on home soil for the first time in years, and it will be an emotional return for him.

We asked Aly what he hopes to leave behind and what he hopes to bring back to Canada…

“What I hope to leave with our international teams is a connection to me, to our Calgary office, so they know that we’re more than just distant names and titles. There’s a fire we share, and we can relate to each other through our mutual passion. 

What I hope to gain and bring back is the ability to absorb my experience and harness it as motivation for myself and for our Calgary office, our supporters and volunteers. I want to inspire them, so they know that together we can achieve more – do more to make our mission to eliminate avoidable blindness a reality.”

Aly is looking forward to seeing our work first-hand for the first time.

“I’ll be experiencing the outcomes of the work we do, seeing the results of our team’s hard work and dedication, and seeing the work that our donors have made possible. I want to empower our international staff, and I hope to let them know that they have my full support to continue doing the work they’re doing.

I also want to build new partnerships and strengthen existing partnerships. I want to let the world know that Operation Eyesight is making serious strides towards accomplishing our mission. And to do that, I’m going to challenge our stakeholders – our allies, volunteers, donors – to rally behind us and scale up with us, so we can reach more people in need and make an even greater impact.”

Is this outside of Aly’s comfort zone? He says that yes, it absolutely is – but that’s just how he wants it.

“I want to get a little uncomfortable. I grew up with a western perspective, so at times I’m going to be uncomfortable with what I see and hear and smell. It will all be unfamiliar and different. Communicating will be difficult, which means I’m going to be vulnerable. It will be an emotional time, and I need to be okay with that.”

We wish Aly all the best on his travels. There will be so much we can learn from his experience, and we’re all looking forward to hearing his stories and sharing them with you, our supporters.

Stay tuned to our blog and social media for more updates from Aly throughout September. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter so you don’t miss an update.

The post Aly’s emotional journey begins 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.

Dr. Santosh Moses joined Operation Eyesight as our Programme Manager for India in 2005. Today, he’s our Regional Manager for south Asia. We admire Santosh’s knowledge, energy and expertise, and wanted to share with you what he does.

Q: How do you see your role in contributing to the elimination of avoidable blindness?

A: As the leader of an incredible team, we’re making a significant impact on avoidable blindness in the regions we work. I’m looking forward to taking our model to more regions where eye care services are limited and the suffering is immense.

Q: How does your master’s degree in hospital and healthcare management influence your view of our work?

A: My master’s degree, coupled with my degree in medicine, has helped me understand the clinical and managerial issues faced by our hospital partners and the doctors and staff that lead and manage these hospitals and programs.

Q: What do you enjoy most about working for Operation Eyesight?

A: Every day brings new challenges and opportunities. It’s exciting to partner with more than 100 eye hospitals in south Asia. I’m thankful that we have been able to make a difference in the lives of over three million people each year!

Q: Can you share a favourite or impactful memory of your time with us?

A: In 2005, I visited the barren land where a partner hospital we helped build now stands. Since then, this hospital has screened over a million people. Over 100,000 people have received eye surgeries there. I visited the hospital recently, and it was beautiful to be reminded how far we’ve come. Millions of lives are being changed through the kindness of our donors!

Q: What are some challenges India faces for eye health care?

A: The geography is vast, and there’s a lack of accessibility to quality eye care. There’s also a shortage of trained eye care professionals to a billion people. We have over 300 projects running in India alone!

We hope you enjoyed this interview! Thanks to you, our teams are making a difference in the communities they work in. With your continued support, you have made it possible to give the Gift of Sight to so many in need. It’s possible… With your help, one day we WILL eliminate avoidable blindness once and for all!

The post We’re making a huge impact in south Asia, with your help! appeared first on Operation Eyesight.