Two-thirds of the world’s blind are women, yet they are the least likely to receive treatment. KCCO, our partner in East Africa, is the world leader on this issue and today I got to see their work first hand. Mollie, a Canadian donor, and I went with Margaret Kessy, KCCO’s Gender and Blindness Coordinator, to meet a group of village women called “Sentinels”.
These “Sentinels” are women who have committed to help find people with eye problems and encourage them to visit the Direct Referral Sites and get help. Margaret is working with 50 Sentinels in 14 different villages and is conducting a research project on the issue of gender and blindness. Today we met with 7 amazing women in a lovely village in the hills, surrounded by lush coffee and banana plantations.
Margaret was speaking with them about her research on the barriers to care faced by women and children and their role in helping people get treatment. She presented them with the materials they need to talk to patients about eye care, to collect information about their cases and to determine why they might refuse treatment. There are a lot of fears around eye surgery. Many people believe that if they get cataract surgery they will be given goats’ eyes, so you can imagine that there’s a bit of an uphill struggle to get people to hospital. According to Margaret, people may come to hospital if they have injured their eyes and are in pain, but with the painless white clouding of cataracts, they will not seek help — indeed, they likely don’t know that anything can be done to save their sight.
Today’s discussion, conducted in a mud-floored, windowless building in the heart of the village, was lively and full of warmth and commitment. All of the women clearly loved Margaret and felt comfortable asking questions and sharing ideas. Mollie and I were very impressed by their dedication to reach out to those who were very poor and who otherwise would not get eye care.
KCCO is a busy place. Next week there is a Childhood Blindness Workshop with people coming from Nepal, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Uganda and, of course, Tanzania. I’ll sit in on most of it, heading out part way through the week to see the trachoma work.
What a magical place this is. Kind, dedicated people doing great work and sharing their knowledge. I’m having a blast!
Heather
