Seva Foundation: Sight Program

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Programs

Sight
  Direct Care
  Sustainability
  Innovation

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Sight Programs

Over the course of nearly 30 years, Seva Foundation has helped over two million blind people see again through affordable eye care services in Asia and Africa. In the past year alone, Seva-supported programs served over 500,000 people worldwide. More than 25,000 children received care to prevent blindness and over 30,000 people had cataract surgery to restore their eyesight.

How does a small organization like Seva make such a big impact? Through a dynamic network of partners around the world, we help communities develop their own high-quality, affordable eye care services.

Seva is an active member of VISION 2020: The Right to Sight, a far-reaching initiative of the World Health Organization and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness that aims to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020.

The need is urgent and compelling. Every five seconds, someone in the world goes blind — and a child goes blind every minute. Of the 45 million blind people worldwide, 90% of them live in the poorest areas of developing countries. But the most important statistic to understand is that 80% of the world's blind people could see again if they had access to adequate eye care services.

To address the problem, Seva's Sight Programs focus on three primary initiatives: Direct Eye Care Service, Sustainable Eye Care Programs, and our internationally recognized Center for Innovation in Eye Care.

		Direct Eye Care Services Seva is helping our partners in developing countries bring high quality, high volume eye care services to those in greatest need: poor people, women, children, and those living in rural areas. We support local hospitals and clinics in Nepal, India, Cambodia, Tibet, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Egypt, and Guatemala, helping them to provide basic eye care, surgeries, eye exams and glasses at little or no cost. Importantly, through our support of mobile eye camps and innovative community outreach services, we make sure people in remote rural areas can access the care they need.

		Sustainable Eye Care Programs For eye care programs in developing countries to be sustainable, local staff must have the clinical knowledge and skills to deliver quality care and to train others. Rather than sending outsiders to run the programs, Seva trains local people to provide care to their own communities. Achieving sustainability also requires that programs become financially self-sufficient. Seva helped to create successful model of high-volume, quality care where fees charged to those who can afford them subsidize free care for those who cannot.

		Center for Innovation in Eye Care Established in 2004, the Center for Innovation in Eye Care develops solutions required to reduce global blindness. Center projects include collaborations across global programs to rapidly identify and promote best practices in the field of eye care. The Center uses creative approaches to establish service networks which increase quality, productivity, and affordability of vital vision services.