But trachoma can be prevented with proper sanitation – and Sarah Kiruri, a teacher at Kishermoruak Primary School, is dedicated to preventing the spread of this painful eye disease by encouraging her students to wash their hands and faces.

After receiving training from Operation Eyesight on the importance of personal hygiene, Sarah has taken up the fight against trachoma with a passion. Each morning, she inspects every student in her school to ensure their faces, hands and fingernails are clean before they go to class. The students have given her the nickname “Mama Safi,” which means “mother of cleanliness.”

Sarah joined the school in 2008. At that time, teachers would spend long hours looking for water – the nearest source a dirty pond seven kilometres away. Personal hygiene in the school was poor since the little water available was used for cooking and essential tasks only.

Thanks to our generous donors, Operation Eyesight developed a borehole at the school to provide clean water and help stop the spread of trachoma in the village.

“We appreciate the project,” says Sarah. “We no longer have to walk long distances to look for water. I now have enough time to relax and plan for tomorrow’s lessons.”

Now that the teachers have convenient access to water, they are able to spend more time coaching their students. As a result, the school’s performance has improved dramatically, and the student population has almost doubled! In addition, the students are cleaner and healthier.

“We used to suffer from waterborne diseases, but now we are healthy,” explains Sarah. Sarah arrives at the school at 7 a.m. every day and inspects 380 students during the morning assembly. If a student does not meet the cleanliness standards, they are enlisted to sweep classrooms or clean the washing bay.

On weekends, she visits neighbouring homesteads and talks to women about the importance of facial cleanliness and the use of latrines. Her mission to eliminate trachoma makes her stand out in the community. The villages have a long history of living with little water and have never placed importance on facial hygiene. Changing their attitudes can be challenging.

But the plight of many people in the community suffering from an eye ailment that can easily be prevented through simple acts, captures Sarah’s heart. While she searches for a way to reach out to the people in the village, they teach her to become a wiser, stronger person.

Sarah says she is grateful to Operation Eyesight for helping her discover her hidden passion of working with communities. And we are grateful to Sarah for her dedication. Together, we are working to eliminate trachoma and prevent blindness – for all the world to see!

You can read about our other trachoma projects in the Narok District here.

The post Teacher is “mother of cleanliness” to her students appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Not only do our Canada Board chair Dan Parlow and vice-chair Rob Ohlson bring significant expertise, energy and commitment to their roles, they have created an exciting new financial initiative as well!

The pair is leading the “Well Champions for Africa” program to raise funds for water wells in Zambia and Kenya. These two African countries suffer from a lack of available fresh water, which contributes to the agonizing eye disease trachoma.

With wells costing $42,000/well in Kenya and $22,000/well in Zambia, Dan and Rob hope colleagues, friends, corporations and members of the wider Operation Eyesight family will consider contributing to a well and becoming a “well champion.”

Rob recently funded a well in Zambia, while Dan put together a network of four investors to fund two wells in the same country. “We are excited at the possibility to transform up to 6,000 lives with our modest investments and to watch the results unfold over the upcoming years,” Dan says.

“As the cliché states, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” says Rob. “Not only is clean water the epicenter of eye health, it nurtures immeasurable ancillary benefits from education to farming to healthcare to the ability to strive to a better life. It allows people to live, not just exist.”

“Return on investment (ROI) is critical to us, as it is to other donors,” adds Dan. “Operation Eyesight’s clean water program provides an astonishingly high ROI on blindness prevention which is readily measurable. This program provides an opportunity for individuals and small groups to participate in the dramatic transformation of an entire village. Your donation can help eradicate blinding trachoma, and provide vast ancillary benefits which come with access to clean water.”

“This fundraising program proves our board members stand behind their passion for Operation Eyesight with their financial commitment,” says Brian Foster, interim president and CEO. “They believe in and connect with our mission. It’s a fantastic response to a very great need.”

If you’d like to donate to one of Operation Eyesight’s water projects, visit our Gift Guide and check out the options listed under “Water for Life”!

The post ‘Well Champions’ program hits a gusher! appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

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.

The post Ongata Naado – a village transformed (Part 1 of 2) appeared first on Operation Eyesight.