Overview of Seva's Sight Programs

Blindness is a major global health problem. An estimated 45 million people are blind and a further 135 million have debilitating low vision, and their numbers keep growing daily. Here are some of the staggering statistics:

• Every 5 seconds a person in the world goes blind.
• A child goes blind every minute.
• 90% of the world’s blind people live in developing countries.
• Two out of three blind people in the world are women, yet are the least likely to obtain sight-restoring services.

The number of people in need is growing far more rapidly than the provision of eye care services to help them. The bad news is that current estimates indicate the number of blind increasing to 75 million by 2020, without the supply of much-need eye-care.

The good news is that three-quarters of global blindness is treatable or preventable. Half of the world’s blindness is caused by cataracts, a reversible condition that requires a 15-minute operation at a cost of about $50 throughout most developing countries.

Eye care has a unique potential among health services in developing countries to become financially sustainable.

Treatments available for the prevention and cure of blindness are among the most successful and cost-effective of all healthcare interventions, especially when charging affordable patient fees and the integration of the sale of optical services.

Gender and Blindness

Two out of three blind people in the world are women, yet are the least likely to obtain sight restoring services. This disparity is even more pronounced amongst underage girls and boys.

Seva Canada has taken a leadership role in the Gender and Blindness global initiative. All Seva-led projects work towards achieving gender equity by focusing on overcoming traditional barriers to women and girls' access. The barriers preventing women and girls from receiving sight-restoring surgery vary locally and can include:

• cost of surgery
• inability to travel to a surgical facility
• differences in the perceived value of surgery
• lack of access to information and resources
• fear of a poor outcome

Mere awareness of this problem is not enough to make a difference. Political will and social action are needed to address gender inequities in use of eye care services. It is our belief that in order to achieve the goals of VISION 2020, gender inequities in eye care must become a priority for all organizations.

   To read more
   about the important issue of gender and blindness,
   download Seva's report,
  

Gender and Blindness:

Initiatives to address inequity.

In addition to developing model service delivery programs, Seva has played an active role in the recent growth of a strong international collaboration in blindness prevention, which has culminated in the launch of VISION 2020: The Right to Sight - a global initiative which aims to help eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020.

Five conditions - cataract, refractive errors/low vision, trachoma, onchocerciasis, and vitamin A deficiency/other causes of childhood blindness -- are responsible for 75% of all blindness. For each of these five conditions, effective and cost-efficient intervention strategies are available.

Now, more than ever before, there is a great potential for Seva to engage with leading international blindness prevention organizations to promote a worldwide blindness prevention agenda and have a significant impact on the reduction of blindness globally.

Where We Want to Be

Our vision for this decade is one of both expansion in the depth, service volume, and geographic scope of our current programs, as well as development for sharing effective eye care delivery strategies to increase our overall impact on global blindness.

The VISION 2020 campaign is raising awareness of blindness as a public health issue globally, and provides a new context for Seva's sight work. Both at the international level and in the specific countries Seva works in, blindness prevention efforts are now being coordinated under the framework of the VISION 2020 program.

This program has identified priorities for global blindness prevention efforts over the next two decades, and within these priorities Seva has identified specific areas of great need that we aim to address.

Within this decade, we want Seva Canada to be a major player not only in the global work against cataract blindness, but also in the development of international efforts to reduce childhood blindness and to bring glasses and low vision aids to the millions of people who need them.