We train local community health workers who conduct door-to-door eye health screenings, refer patients to a vision centre or hospital for treatment, and provide health education. They’re able to reach families in remote and underserved areas.
Raising awareness and empowering people and communities about eye health is one of five recommendations of the World Health Organization’s 2019 World Report on Vision.
By establishing vision centres in communities, we ensure patients have local access to comprehensive eye exams, prescription eyeglasses and referrals to hospital if needed.
Our goal is to declare all of our partner communities as Avoidable Blindness-Free!
Learn more about our approach here
- Avoidable Blindness-Free villages/communities
The declaration of a community as Avoidable Blindness-Free is the culmination of the work done through our five programming areas: community eye health, disease control, integrated eye health, hospital strengthening, and research and advocacy. We work with our partner hospitals to ensure every last person in our communities of work has an opportunity to get screened for eye conditions and can access free or subsidized treatment.
After months, or even years, of working closely with a community, and when all the treatable cases have been treated successfully and there is no more risk of anyone losing their sight needlessly, the community is declared as Avoidable Blindness-Free on a sustainable basis. We plan a public event to mark the occasion, inviting partners, dignitaries and patients to come together in celebration.
- How do we know that all treatable cases of vision loss have been treated?
We (re)survey the community to find out! At the start of a project, trained community health workers go door to door, screening every person in every household within their catchment area for vision problems and making referrals to a vision centre or other facility as needed. They will visit a household repeatedly until they have screened every child, woman and man. Toward the end of the project, they resurvey the community to ensure everyone in need of treatment has been helped.
- Sustainability
We know that, even if we can confirm that all treatable cases of vision loss have been treated as of today, people can of course develop eye health issues tomorrow. But the goal is for the community to be Avoidable Blindness-Free on a sustainable basis. This is why we work with partner facilities to help them become financially self-sustaining, and community health workers to conduct extensive health education sessions in the community to increase people’s knowledge and awareness of eye health. So, if someone starts experiencing eye health issues tomorrow, they will have the knowledge and resources needed to take charge of their eye health.
Entire communities in Karnataka, India are now Avoidable Blindness-Free. See the video.
