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Official Charity
Vision
Sightsavers International’s vision is of a world in which no-one is needlessly blind and where everyone who is irreversibly blind or severely visually impaired enjoys the same rights, responsibilities and opportunities as people who are sighted.
Mission
Sightsavers is dedicated to combating blindness in developing countries, primarily in the Commonwealth, by working with partner organizations in poor and the least served communities to support ongoing activities that prevent and cure blindness, restore sight and provide education and training for irreversibly blind people.
THE PROBLEM
Today, there are an estimated 37 million blind people worldwide, with a further 277 million with severe visual impairment. Every five seconds one person in our world goes blind and one child goes blind every minute. 75 % are suffering needlessly, as their blindness could be prevented or treated. This avoidable blindness is inextricably linked with poverty: millions go blind for lack of simple treatment and millions stay blind for lack of simple surgery. Yet activities to prevent and treat blindness are amongst the most cost-effective in the world, with sight-restoring cataract surgery costing in some countries as little as £17.
The World Health Organisation estimates that without intervention, the number of blind people could increase to 76 million by the year 2020, increasing the social and economic impact on individuals, families and communities in developing countries.
The leading causes of blindness are either preventable or curable:
Cataract - The leading cause of blindness with 18 million blind as a result of this cloudiness of the lens. Affecting adults and children it cannot be prevented but is easy and cost effective to cure with a 20 minute operation to replace the lens.
Trachoma - Trachoma causes 15% of the world’s blindness. It is caused by an infection spread by flies and cross infection. It can be prevented easily with environmental and personal hygiene or antibiotic treatment. Years of infection leads to trichiasis, when the eyelid turns inwards, rubbing on the eye causing terrible pain and eventually blindness. This can be cured with a simple operation costing on average £5.
River Blindness - Found primarily in Africa, this disease is caused by a parasite which once in the body causes terrible itching and skin problems and on reaching the eye, blindness. It is easily preventable with an annual single dose of Mectizan® donated by Merck & Co.
For over fifty years Sightsavers International has been combating unnecessary blindness and providing services for irreversibly blind people in developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. To combat preventable blindness Sightsavers has joined forces with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other eye care non governmental organisations (NGO’s) to form VISION 2020
VISION 2020
VISION 2020: The Right to Sight is a global initiative which aims to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020 working collaboratively with more than 20 international NGO’s involved in eye care and prevention and management of blindness.
The good news is that since the start of this new initiative the number of people who are blind has reduced due to the long-term work of VISION 2020. The success in tackling the causes of blindness as well as the important work of improving the statistical information on blindness has led to this reduction.
Evidence of the effectiveness of the VISION 2020 programme can be seen for example in India where the numbers of people who are blind has dropped from 9 to 6.7 million people, a decrease of 25% in 10 years. The global figures for trachoma are also dropping mainly due to the improvement in treatment, water provision, hygiene and sanitation.
Our work
Working with partners in the countries where we have a presence, Sightsavers supports five core areas of work:
- Blindness prevention (eg river blindness and trachoma) through community distribution of preventative medicine and with community eye health education. More than 13 million people were protected against river blindness in 2005.
- Reversing blindness through surgical operations (eg cataracts). We supported 261,657 operations in 2005.
- Provision of eye screening for people with low vision and provision of glasses and other visual aids. 4.7 million people were seen by our local partners in 2005.
- Support for blind people who will not see again such as supporting inclusion of blind children in schools or rehabilitation work with adults. In 2005 we helped 9,216 people to lead independent lives and 9,436 children with visual impairment to attend mainstream schools.
- Training of eye care, rehabilitation and education personnel at all levels (eg community eye health workers to fully qualified ophthalmologists). We supported the training of 57,386 workers.
Other areas of our work include the lobbying and capacity building of governments and other stakeholders, participation in global partnerships aiming to tackle the problem and undertaking national surveys and in depth research on eye care issues.:
Other areas of our work include the lobbying and capacity building of governments and other stakeholders, participation in global partnerships aiming to tackle the problem and undertaking national surveys and in depth research on eye care issues.:
Website: www.sightsavers.org
