Thanks to you…

Thirteen-year-old Tom (and thousands of children, women and men) in the Lake Kariba area, Zambia, received antibiotics to treat and prevent blinding trachoma!

Young Deborah and her sister Claries in Kenya received new prescription eyeglasses, and now they can see clearly and are doing better in school. Thanks to you, their lives and futures have been brought into focus!

This man in Ghana received sight-saving surgery, thanks to the incredible generosity of people like you! He’s grateful to have his sight back and his quality of life restored. His life is one of thousands your generosity has changed!

Fourteen-year-old Atul in India developed cataracts as a young boy, and he feared his future was lost. But thanks to your kind heart, he received sight-saving surgery and now has returned to his studies to build his future. Atul is just one of thousands whom your generosity has helped!

Finally, thanks to generous donors, we were able to re-commence operations in Nepal. Today, we’re partnering with the Nepal Eye Hospital in Kathmandu to provide families (like the one pictured above) with the quality eye health care they deserve. Thank you!

We at Operation Eyesight hope you and your family will enjoy this Canadian Thanksgiving with lots of turkey and stuffing! Thank you so much for all that you do – For All the World to See.

The post Thank YOU for all that you do! appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Clean water is essential for general health, eye health included. Without readily-available clean water, people can’t wash or sanitize, causing the spread of diseases.

In Zambia, there are still thousands of children, women and men who are suffering from the blinding disease, trachoma.

Trachoma is the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness. Caused by bacterial infection, it spreads easily through contact with eye discharge from infected people on hands, towels and clothing, and also through direct transmission by flies. Children are most susceptible to trachoma, and because of their role as primary caregivers, women are three times more likely than men to be blinded by the disease.

But there’s a solution! The SAFE strategy.

Thanks to your support, we’ll ramp up our efforts to implement the SAFE strategy to eliminate blinding trachoma in Zambia. SAFE stands for Surgery, Antibiotics, Face washing and hygiene education, and Environmental change.

Thanks to you, we’ll develop borehole programs in vulnerable communities in Zambia. Establishing each borehole program will include identifying a viable location; drilling the borehole; analyzing the water quality; training and equipping local villagers as pump minders; monitoring and evaluating the program; building the capacity of the village water committee; distributing antibiotics, and educating the community on eye health and general health.

By providing villages with fresh water, not only will you help improve sanitation and prevent the spread of trachoma and other disease, but you’ll also provide families with the means to grow crops and raise livestock. And by supporting our community outreach and eye health education programs, you’ll also help us identify those with eye problems and refer them for treatment.

In addition, the provision of fresh water assists in the development of education. Villages with fresh water attract teachers and, as children (especially girls) will no longer have to spend long hours walking to find water, they’ll be able to attend school. In the coming years, entire communities will be transformed, thanks to you!

What has our team in Zambia been up to so far this year?

Now that the rainy season has ended, we’re conducting needs assessments in Sinazongwe district and surrounding districts to identify communities at greatest risk of trachoma and to begin identifying viable drilling locations. We’re working with the Ministry of Local Government and Housing to determine the number of households and the total population that will benefit from the boreholes. Depending on the needs of the districts, we’ll select our target communities.

We’re also in discussions with the Department of Water Affairs to see if we can partner with them again. In the past, they’ve contributed to our borehole projects, allowing us to expand our work to additional communities.

We promote community buy-in right from the start. Once our target communities have been identified, we’ll engage with community members to ensure they take ownership of the project, and to collaboratively develop borehole programs based on the specific needs of each community.

With all our programs, our goal is to educate communities and empower them to take responsibility for their eye health needs. In doing so, we can create sustainable programs that communities will continue to benefit from, even after our formal partnership with them has ended. By investing in communities at the onset of the program, we can ensure that your generous gifts will be used in the best possible way!

Your support will help hundreds of thousands in Zambia, but there’s still more work to be done! Please help us continue the fight against avoidable blindness by giving a gift. Thank you for all your support — For All the World to See!

The post Together we’ll wash away blindness in Zambia! appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

As in our Kenyan projects, we’re also implementing the full SAFE strategy in our work in Zambia, with 2016 seeing great progress in these programs. We successfully drilled 22 boreholes in Sinazongwe, bringing our total number of boreholes in the district to 96. These boreholes serve as many as 48,000 people, or 40 percent of the district population. It’s amazing what one borehole can do!

In 2016, we concentrated our efforts in Mweenda, the largest ward in Sinazongwe district. Our goal is to declare Mweenda trachoma blindness-free by the end of 2017!

To establish each borehole program, we partnered with the Ministry of Health and local Water Affairs Department; identified a viable location; drilled the borehole; analyzed the water quality; monitored and evaluated the program; trained the village water committee; and educated the community on sanitation, eye health and general health.

We also trained and equipped 30 local villagers as pump minders, who repaired 15 dysfunctional boreholes originally drilled by other international NGOs. The pump minders now have the knowledge to maintain the boreholes in their communities, which will ensure our trachoma programs are sustainable.

In partnership with the Ministry of Health, we conducted our third Mass Drug Administration of antibiotics to treat and prevent the spread of trachoma infection. Distribution coverage of the antibiotic was 95 percent, and we reached many small islands in Lake Kariba, where children and adults received antibiotics for the first time.

Not only has implementation of the SAFE strategy helped prevent blindness, but it has also provided other important benefits. Improved sanitation has reduced other serious illnesses such as malaria, diarrheal diseases, upper respiratory infections and skin diseases.

By preventing the chronic recurrence of trachoma in children, and by eliminating the need for children to travel long distances to fetch household water before going to school, we’ve contributed to an increase in school attendance for both girls and boys. The presence of water close by has led to the construction of schools, encouraging teachers to accept postings at these schools!

Established water points have also reduced the number of human-animal conflicts. With a safe water source nearby, people are no longer at risk of crocodiles or other animal predators that may be lurking in rivers or lakes.

And finally, a reliable water source has given communities the ability to irrigate crops, grow vegetable gardens and raise healthier livestock, thus improving nutrition and providing a means to earn an income.

Not only are you helping restore sight, you’re helping improve quality of life for thousands!

We’re so grateful for everything people like you are making possible. Together we have changed millions of lives, and together we can change millions more! Please help us continue with our fight against avoidable blindness, and consider making a gift through our Gift Guide. No gift is too small! Together we can eliminate avoidable blindness – For All the World to See!

The post 2016 was an incredible year in Zambia – Thanks to you! appeared first on Operation Eyesight.

Many young girls in rural Zambia are not as fortunate. Every day, these girls have to worry about how long it will take to fetch clean water for their families, whether they can make the trip in time to go to school – and how they can stay safe from animal predators during a trek that can be several kilometers long!

In the Southern Province of Zambia in the Sinazongwe district, there’s no easy access to clean water. Although sparsely populated, many villages are situated in the mountainous part of the district that receives very little rainfall each year.

In the past, the communities were only able to obtain drinking water from shallow wells, dug in the banks of perennial river beds. Some of the villages are near freshwater Lake Kariba – but that lake is also infested with hungry crocodiles! Certainly not an ideal situation.

Until recently, if a community couldn’t afford to pay to drill their own borehole, they were forced to share their limited water supply with livestock. Proximity to the cattle and goats also brought flies, which led to the spread of sickness and disease like blinding trachoma.

In areas where water is scarce, it’s usually women and girls who are responsible for fetching water. This often involves long, exhausting walks to and from the water source – usually with the very real danger of being attacked by wild animals. In the Sinazongwe district, it was so dangerous that not a week would go by without hearing of a life lost due to animal predators! It meant girls either missed a lot of school or weren’t enrolled at all.

I’m sure many girls thought that they’d never be able to improve their futures. But thankfully, we have amazing donors who are committed to changing this situation. Because of the incredible generosity of people like you, 96 water boreholes to date have been drilled in the district!

Operation Eyesight’s well programs are so much more than simply drilling a hole in the ground. Establishing each well program includes:

• identifying a viable location;
• drilling the borehole;
• analyzing the water quality;
• training and equipping local villagers as pump minders;
• monitoring and evaluating the program;
• mobilizing the community and building the capacity of the village water committee;
• distributing antibiotics to fight the blinding eye disease, trachoma; and
• educating the community on eye health and general health.

Having ready access to clean potable (drinkable) water provides families with enough water that they can spare some for washing hands and faces – and this improved hygiene, in turn, helps prevent disease. And being closer to water also helps free up enough time from their household duties for girls to attend school.

Today, many more girls in the district are attending classes safely and on time. They go to school with plastic containers so they can carry water home from the borehole when their classes end. They know going to school means they can learn to read and write, which will improve their chances for a better life someday.

The girls at Nyanga school in Sinazongwe are especially grateful and excited to continue their studies. “We are still in the primary school, and we look forward to continuing with our education to become teachers or nurses so we can also help our people in this district.”

And all this progress was made possible by generous people just like you. Thank you!

You can help give more girls the chance to live their childhood, to follow their dreams and build a future for themselves. Help provide them with clean water – give a donation and support our water programs today!

The post Fresh water can restore girls’ futures! appeared first on Operation Eyesight.