Seeing is Believing

A quarter of the world’s population has a visual impairment.

And the inequalities are huge: the number of people affected in low and middle income countries is four times higher than in high income countries.

Our Seeing is Believing project, active in Bangladesh, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, has worked to address those inequalities, treat avoidable blindness and improve local healthcare to ensure the impact is lasting.

To celebrate the 17-year-long project, we challenged Sightsavers CEO Caroline Harper to memorise and recite 17 of those achievements within 90 seconds.

Watch Caroline’s challenge below.

What has the project achieved?

• Screened 34 million people: Hear from our chief global technical lead to get a behind-the-scenes look at how we reached so many people
• Given 860,000 people glasses
• Provided 619,000 cataract operations: Meet Arif, whose operation enabled him to learn at school, migrate from his childhood village and earn a living
• Became better at finding people who need treatment: Meet the miking team we trained to spread the word about free eye health care among remote communities
• Made our work more inclusive: Through our learning, we continue to reach those most marginalised via inclusive eye health projects
• Increased people’s trust: Learn how members of Arif’s family became confident to seek treatment after his successful operation
• Treated more women for cataracts: Women are more likely to develop cataracts, so we make sure people like Azimunnisa can get the treatment they need
• Lowered cataract cases in low income areas: People living in informal, urban settlements often experience discrimination, so we ensured they aren’t left behind
• Inspired people to become champions: In Pakistan, we trained Lady Health Workers to make sure families are informed about eye health
• Trained 185,000 health workers: Meet the health workers who were trained more than 10 years ago and see what impact it has had on their careers
• Trained 83,000 teachers and classroom assistants to spot eye health problems: Training education staff to carry out eye screenings helps to make sure that in the future, no child will be left behind
• Screened 2 million children: Without eye health screenings, hundreds of children around the world who were born with cataracts wouldn’t have been diagnosed and treated to stop them going irreversibly blind
• Improved childhood nutrition: To reduce deficiency-associated blindness among children, we provided vitamin A supplements
• Provided resources such as braille: We’ve helped to ensure all children, including those with visual impairments, can learn at school alongside their peers
• Worked with governments to provide integrated eye health: We’ve integrated eye health into countries’ primary health care, meaning our impact will continue long into the future
• Carried out research on how to make healthcare more effective: We conduct independent research to shape our work and make sure it’s as effective as possible
• Contributed to the first research into the cost of eye care in Africa: These estimates are crucial to help meet global goals to eliminate avoidable blindness. Read about the impact that good sight has on the global economy