This year’s theme for World Sight Day is “Gender and Eye Health – Equal Access to Care.” The objective is to expose the inequality that women face in gaining access to fair and adequate sight care, and to explore ways to bring about change. CBM will be actively involved in supporting this important initiative.

Did you know:
•    Nearly two-thirds of blind people worldwide are women & girls
•    80% of blindness is avoidable - either treatable, curable or preventable
•    In many places, men have twice the access to eye care as women
•    Equal access to eye care could substantially reduce blindness in poor countries*
•    Simple and effective strategies can and do successfully address this inequity within VISION 2020: The Right to Sight, which CBM supports.

CBM Ireland is working in some of the poorest communities in the world to prevent unnecessary blindness in women. We’re doing this by treating and preventing diseases like Trachoma and River Blindness; and by performing sight-giving cataract operations in places like Samburu.

Donate here

 

In Samburu, you often come across people like Martha, wearing a pair of tweezers on a cord around their necks. This is no fashion accessory, but a desperate method of ridding themselves from the agony of Trachoma.

 

Martha has Trachoma Trichiasis, an advanced stage of Trachoma where her eyelids have turned inwards and her eye-lashes are constantly scratching the surface of her eyes, causing her terrible pain.

 

“I’ve had Trachoma for four months now. I pull out my eyelashes with these tweezers,” Martha holds up the metal pincers hanging around her neck. “It hurts when I pull my lashes out, but it’s better than the scratching. I can’t see properly. The problem is the eyelashes. When I remove them I can see properly.”

 

But of course, Martha’s eyelashes grow back, and the pain begins all over again. Without help from CBM, she will go blind. Her only hope of a cure at this stage, is lid rotation surgery. A simple procedure that costs just €15.

 

CBM donors pay for thousands of these operations, saving people just like Martha from agonizing blindness.

And you can too - click here to donate now.

 

A simple tube of Tetracycline ointment costing just €3 can stop Trachoma in it’s tracks - killing the virus before it reaches the agonising stage that Martha’s has. And one tube can treat an entire family in Samburu - please help with a donation today!


* "… blindness and severe visual impairment from cataract could be reduced by around 11% in low- and middle-income countries if women were to receive cataract surgery at the same rate as men (British Journal of Ophthalmology, Dec 2008; doi:10.1136/bjo. 2008.140301)."