Treatable, avoidable blindness is a stain, a disgrace on all of us. Millions of people go blind unnecessarily in the Developing World, through treatable conditions such as Trachoma, Glaucoma, and River Blindness.
Sightsavers is an international NGO that aims to eliminate avoidable blindness and promote equality for people with disabilities. Sightsavers’ advocacy work focuses on a broader disability agenda than just blindness, believing they can achieve far greater leverage speaking on behalf of the world’s one billion people who consider themselves to have a disability.
However, eye health remains the main feature of their programmes. From screening in communities, schools and health centres, comprehensive eye care projects that refer adults and children for cataract surgery, to treating conditions like trachoma – providing sustainable eye health services is at the very heart of Sightsavers’ work.
Currently operating in over 30 countries, largely in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, they continue to work where the need is greatest. And the need is indeed great; in India there is a vast backlog of people who need simple cataract surgery; in West Africa Sightsavers teams are tangibly close to eliminating river blindness. Meanwhile, in East Africa the organisation’s field workers are eliminating trachoma through the World Health Organisation approved SAFE approach, which combines, surgery, drug administration, and improvements to sanitation.
With Electric Aid supporting programmes like these in countries such as Mali, Malawi and Ghana, Sightsavers have now been able to establish a network of well-equipped ophthalmic clinics and specialist units in areas that previously had little or no available services. ElectricAid has funded Sightsavers projects with more than €70,000 since 2012, supporting vital projects ranging from motorbikes for rural outreach eye clinics in Mozambique to equipping Education Assessment & Resource Centres for children with disabilities in Kenya.
ElectricAid’s continued support has also meant that Sightsavers have been able to train specialist ophthalmological staff, strengthen district health services in isolated areas, and get ever closer to reaching their goal of eliminating trachoma by 2020 on a global scale. Ciara Smullen, of Sightsavers Ireland, says that ElectricAid’s support has been life-changing for thousands of adults and children in the world’s poorest countries:
“Without the generosity and support of organisations like ElectricAid, we would not be able to achieve the work we have towards eliminating avoidable blindness in the developing countries where we operate. Since our work began, donors such as Electric Aid have provided 6.1 million cataract surgeries and 332,000 trachoma operations. We have also been able to support more than 180,000 people with disabilities, enabling them to live full and independent lives.
We think that making miracles like these a reality for so many people is money well spent. We hope you do too.”
Don’t worry Ciara, we do, we do!
Take a few moments to check out Sightsavers’ presentation to ElectricAid in 2017 here: Sightsavers 17072017.
See our funding history with Sightsavers here Funding history:
electricaid.ie 