Priya in Nepal can’t remember when she first started having trouble seeing, but her vision kept deteriorating until one day she fell and injured herself while climbing the steep trail leading from the village to her house. Figuring that blindness was an inevitable part of old age, she stayed at home, unable to visit friends and grandchildren. Eventually she couldn’t even reach the outhouse without assistance. She felt like a burden to her family.

Mary, in Kenya, loved school from her very first day in the classroom and dreamed of becoming a teacher someday. After she turned 13, she started having trouble reading the chalk board. She had to copy notes from her friends and couldn’t do her homework in the dim light at her house. Her grades began to slip. She asked her parents to take her to an eye doctor, but money was too tight because they were saving to send her brother to college. By age 15, Mary quit school and decided to get married, her hopes of teaching now crushed.

None of these characters are real, but they represent the millions of women and girls around the world who are living with avoidable vision loss and blindness. We hear stories like these every day.

The prevalence of vision loss is higher among women and girls than it is for men and boys; 55 per cent of people experiencing vision loss are female. And while there are some biological factors at play, the reasons for these discrepancies are largely social.

Why women and girls experience more vision impairment

Women live on average longer than men, and many conditions that rob people of their sight are associated with old age. This includes cataract, presbyopia, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration. According to estimates, two-thirds of cataract blindness globally occurs in women.

Traditional gender roles are another factor, especially in some regions.

Women and girls are two to four times more likely than men and boys to get trachoma – the leading infectious cause of blindness worldwide. Trachoma is caused by bacteria that spreads through contact on hands and clothing. Small children are especially susceptible, and in turn, they often pass it on to their caretakers. Women and girls may also get infected from household cleaning and doing laundry.

Obstacles to eye health care access

The barriers to health care for women and girls vary widely from region to region, but there are trends that we can observe across the countries where we work. These include:

• Cost and lack of financial decision-making capacity: Men often control the family finances. Women are less likely to work outside the home, meaning that the men and boys in their family who earn an income are often prioritized for spending on treatment.
• Limited healthcare infrastructure: In some regions, particularly in rural areas, inadequate healthcare infrastructure makes it difficult for women and girls to access eye care. The cost or lack of public transportation to the nearest facilities can exacerbate this problem for many women and girls, as can the social taboos and safety risks presented by travelling alone.
• Family responsibilities: Running a household and taking care of family members, duties that often fall on women, can make it challenging for women to take the time they need to get eye care.
• Lack of information: Unequal access to education for women and girls contributes to lower literacy rates and educational levels, which make it more difficult for women to learn about a specific eye condition or find out where they can get it treated.
• Cultural stigmas: Cultural norms and stigmas surrounding health issues, particularly eye health, can dissuade women from getting help. These cultural barriers may result in delayed or avoided medical attention.
• Lack of female healthcare professionals: A shortage of female healthcare professionals in the eye care sector can create discomfort for women and girls, potentially discouraging them from seeking assistance.

Addressing these diverse challenges is crucial for breaking down the barriers that prevent women and girls from accessing essential eye health care services.

Working toward gender equality

Our approach, called the “Hospital-Based Community Eye Health Program Model,” is designed to address inequalities to accessing eye health care, starting at the village level.

Most of the community health workers trained by Operation Eyesight’s partner hospitals are women, which gives them the opportunity to become trusted leaders in their communities and helps them contribute to family finances. They also bring eye health screenings to people’s doorsteps, meaning that women and girls don’t need to travel to get primary eye care and referrals.

Additionally, we work with our partner hospitals to establish vision centres closer to the communities where we work, making it easier for everyone to access diagnosis and treatment. Our partner hospitals also provide safe transportation for patients – usually by bus – to the hospital so that they can get their surgeries without worrying about how they’ll get there.

Finally, by providing surgeries, eyeglasses and other treatments free of charge – or at a highly subsidized rate – we can decrease some of the financial barriers women and girls face. We strive to provide quality eye care services to everyone – regardless of gender, age, ability to pay or other personal circumstances.

Dismantling gender-related eye health myths in the foothills of the Himalayas

In the villages of the Udhampur block in Jammu region, vision problems are often seen as a sign of bad luck. A girl wearing glasses might be told she’ll never have a good marriage, and a baby’s bad eyesight might be blamed on past life sins. A girl with a squint could be seen as a curse for the whole family.

Those are some of the beliefs a recent pilot project took aim at.

Created in partnership with NorQuest College and the Rotary Eye & ENT Hospital, the project provided services through a “Mobile Vision Centre” – a four-wheel-drive van staffed with an eye health team comprised mostly of women. The van roamed the area’s rugged roads, bringing primary eye care and education to people’s doorsteps.

More than 27,000 people received training pertaining to eye health myths during the project duration. A before-and-after survey that checked people’s attitudes and beliefs regarding eye health for girls and women showed dramatic differences after the intervention. With that success in mind, our teams are looking to implement strategies from the project throughout our programs.

Donate today to help us bring quality eye health care to more women and girls.

The post Gender inequalities in vision loss appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Blindness is a gender issue. Blindness discriminates. Fifty-five per cent of the world’s blind are women and girls. More than 20 million women and girls are blind, and 120 million are visually impaired. Four out of five people who are blind don’t need to be.

And this injustice is magnified in developing countries. Women face additional barriers to accessing eye care that men don’t: lack of education, limited decision-making power, restricted access to financial resources and a lower perceived priority.

One reason for the disparity is that women live longer than men, so they are more likely to develop age-related, non-communicable eye diseases such as cataract, glaucoma and macular degeneration. But despite the fact that more women than men are affected by the condition, cataract surgery rates are lower for women.

And this is only part of the picture.

Women and girls are at greater risk of contracting trachoma, an infectious eye disease that leads to irreversible blindness. Seventy per cent of those affected by blinding trachoma are women. Very young children are at risk for trachoma, and three times as many girls as boys suffer from it.

Women and girls are at increased risk for infectious eye diseases because of their traditional roles. Women and girls carry the burden of taking care of their relatives who suffer from trachoma or other eye conditions. Not only does this increase their risk of contracting trachoma themselves, but it often limits their opportunities to go to school or find employment.

Women who are blind carry the double burden of discrimination because of their disability and their gender, which can lead to social exclusion. This impacts their ability to do day-to-day activities, increases their risk of injury, and leaves them more vulnerable to violence and depression.

To achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the World Health Organization’s VISION 2020 goals, eye care programs must eliminate all forms of inequity in access to eye care for women and girls. Eye care programs must recognize that women and girls have different needs, preferences and constraints, and women and girls should be at the centre of eye health programming.

Organizations must work with local communities to understand the barriers women face, take affirmative action in training and human resource development to ensure there are more women in the health care system, and remove the barriers to access to services. In addition, programs should integrate eye health services into maternal and reproductive health facilities to give pregnant women access to eye health screening that is not provided routinely, and provide outreach to villages where eye disease remains largely undiagnosed and untreated.

Operation Eyesight works with local hospital and government partners to provide quality eye care services to everyone – regardless of gender, age, ability to pay or other personal circumstances – while working to address the many root causes of avoidable blindness and remove barriers to health care, specifically and deliberately targeting the barriers for women and girls.

I’m especially proud of our focus on community outreach and education. We train community health workers – women who live and work in our target communities – to conduct door-to-door eye screenings and educate families about eye health and general health topics such as prenatal care, nutrition and immunization. This approach allows us to reach women and girls who might otherwise go unreached, ensuring those with eye health issues are referred to a partner hospital or vision centre for treatment.

Community health workers also refer women and their families to primary health care facilities for pre/postnatal care, vitamin A supplementation, immunizations, etc. These are just a few examples of how we’re embedding SDG 5: Gender Equality into our everyday work.

Stats on blindness and women retrieved from the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, Seva Canada, this article in BMJ Open Ophthalmology and this article in Ophthalmic Epidemiology.

A variation of this article was previously published on CCIC’s website for Gender Equality Week.

The post Empowering women in unexpected ways appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

The last of the sun’s rays cast over a small village near the India-Bangladesh border. Nurbhanu is finishing up her final house call of the day.

As a community health worker with Operation Eyesight’s Community-Based Eye Health Project in West Bengal, India, she is used to working late into the evening.

Tomorrow, a team from Siliguri Greater Lions Eye Hospital (SGLEH), Operation Eyesight’s partner hospital, is holding a screening program in the village. Nurbhanu’s job is to promote the screening and ensure that those identified during an earlier door-to-door survey attend.

Nurbhanu (whose name means ‘Lady of the Light’) has made a mark for herself in her community, bringing light to villages primarily inhabited by Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh.

Being from the same community and from an Orthodox family, Nurbhanu was a bit hesitant to take on the job at first. But, with her husband Mohamed’s endless encouragement, she has done tremendous work in a difficult area.

Since she began working as a community health worker two years ago, Nurbhanu has conducted more than 14 screening programs. Through these programs, she has helped more than 1,600 people receive an eye examination, 450 people undergo surgery and 320 people receive glasses.

Most of the beneficiaries have been Muslim women who now look to Nurbhanu for their family’s eye health needs.

Nurbhanu’s successes have not come without sacrifice. She spent 25 days away from home to undergo rigorous training conducted by Operation Eyesight and SGLEH staff. Most days she travels many kilometres on bicycle, comes home late and then cooks dinner for her children.

Convincing Muslim women that their children should undergo immunization, and counselling patients who are otherwise reluctant to undergo surgery has not been easy. Yet Nurbhanu continues to deliver, day after day.

Mohamed is proud of his wife and the work she is doing. “It’s painful to see those who cannot see what they have on their plate to eat,” he says. “But my wife helps those elderly to see clearly what they eat after their treatment.”

He is extremely happy to support his wife in her activities. Nurbhanu on the other hand is grateful she is able to live up to her name!

Nurbhanu plans to train to become a vision technician. Once she has finished her training, she will work in a vision centre in West Bengal, examining patients, prescribing eye glasses and bringing light to those who would otherwise go needlessly blind.

We commend Nurbhanu for her unwavering commitment to eliminating avoidable blindness, and her part in our work! You can also read about Nurbhanu’s colleague, Rama.

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Today is International Women’s Day and we’re talking water. Why? In areas where water is scarce, it is usually women and girls who are responsible for fetching water. This often involves walking several kilometres each day with the very present danger of being attacked by wild animals. And for girls, it means they either miss a lot of school or aren’t enrolled at all.

Thankfully, we have amazing donors who are committed to changing this situation.

Dean Loewen and his team have created their own Race for a Reason – the Run for “Well”ness for which they’ll complete the Scotiabank Vancouver Half Marathon or 5K race on June 23. Their goal is to raise $15,000 for our Zambia well projects!

Dean, who serves as president of the Mechanical Contractors Association of British Columbia (MCABC), was inspired to put together the team by an old friend Brad Diggens. Brad, chairman of the Mechanical Contractors Association of Canada (MCAC), made Operation Eyesight the MCAC’s charity of choice for the duration of his term. They focus their support for the Zambia wells program.

“When I first heard about the partnership with Operation Eyesight, I didn’t see the connection between eyes and wells,” explains Dean. “As I sat back and listened, I began to understand how wells tie into cleanliness and eyesight. Then Brad announced last year that he and his daughter were hiking the West Coast Trail for Operation Eyesight.”

Dean continues, “I loved what Brad was doing by tying his charity work into his health, fitness and family. I got into health and fitness about four years ago, thanks to my wife Rita. Now, I run and work out regularly. So I thought ‘what a dream to be able to do something with my daughter and wife!’”

Dean, being the go-getting type, made it happen. And it wasn’t enough to do it himself… he challenged members of MCABC to join him for their Race for a Reason. To date, 13 have taken up the challenge, including his wife and daughter Jenelle! They’ll also be promoting the race at MCABC’s upcoming chapter meetings, provincial conference and golf tournament. And Dean has extended the invitation to anyone who’d like to join them: “Everyone is welcome!”

On behalf of the women and communities in Zambia who will benefit from their incredible spirit and dedication, we say a huge “thank you!” to Dean and his MCABC team.

Stay tuned for updates about Dean and his team’s progress.  

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