A Message from the Executive Director and Board Chair

On behalf of the children, parents, grandparents, friends, and loved ones we serve, thank you for helping make 2019 an exceptional year for Seva. With your help, we provided eye care services to 1,539,981 individuals, in 20 different countries. Imagine the impact you have had on the world. More than one and a half million people.

More than that, though, you helped Seva continue to transform the way sustainable eye care is delivered worldwide -- promoting greater access and effectiveness. This past year, we went back to our roots by transporting our founding principles into the 21st century to build a strong foundation for the future. Through a series of discussions, we gathered some of the best minds across the globe to help Seva explore how we can reframe the question and think differently about the best way to help more people see. This report highlights a couple of examples of how we are working to expand access and effectiveness.

Seva has also always emphasized training new ophthalmic professionals and paraprofessionals, particularly women, in underserved communities. This year’s “Increasing Access” section highlights our ground-breaking learning exchange program with doctors from Kaiser Permanente, and the Visualiza eye care clinic in Guatemala. This will be the first of many regionally-focused training exchanges that we facilitate across the Americas.

Year in and year out what matters the most to us are the individuals and communities we serve. Our four decades of experience have taught us that treating childhood blindness and visual impairment is one of the most effective, life-changing health interventions we can undertake. Seva plans to screen one million children for visual impairment in the year 2020 and increase the years of sight restored to millions more. Read about how we plan to make this happen in this year’s “Magnifying Seva’s Reach” section.

As we reflect on this past year we are extremely grateful for your continued generous support. Together and within our lifetimes, we will truly be able to make avoidable blindness a thing of the past. Imagine that.

With Gratitude,

Kate Moynihan

Executive Director

Deborah Galardi

Board Chair

Increasing Access

Visualiza - Kaiser Exchange

One of Seva’s key strategic priorities is increasing access to vision care worldwide. Exchanging information and building expertise are important components of this. It is for this reason that we are excited to tell you about our successful education exchange with Kaiser Permanente this past May.

Visualiza Clínica Médica Oftalmológica (known simply as “Visualiza”), a vision care clinic in Guatemala, generously hosted the exchange. Six Kaiser ophthalmologists, along with Seva Medical Director Dr. Chundak Tenzing, traveled to Guatemala City for the exchange. Each focused on a different specialty. The visiting doctors shadowed physicians from Seva partner clinics in Latin America, consulting on difficult cases, and learning about the challenges and nuances that doctors in the Global South face on a day-to-day basis. In October, Kaiser returned the favor by hosting Visualiza Medical Director Dr. Lucia Silva and some of her colleagues at their own facility in the U.S.

After a quick, safe, and inexpensive procedure, he could see, in his words, “as good as new again.”

- Eusebio, Guatemalan firefighter

Visualiza has been one of Seva’s key partners in Latin America since 2006. They serve patients in Guatemala City, as well as the traditionally underserved rural region of Petén. Through its partnership with Seva via our Global Sight Initiative (GSI), Visualiza also serves as a "mentor hospital” to five “mentee hospitals” throughout Latin America. As a mentor hospital, Visualiza helps mentee clinics develop their community outreach, surgical, HR and hospital management skills to meet the high demand for quality eye care services.

Thanks to your support and all of our talented partners in the region, Seva funded 1088 free eye surgeries in Latin America as part of our World Sight Day efforts.

Magnifying Seva’s Reach

Sight for 1 Million Children

Seva is taking aim at childhood blindness this year like never before. By the end of the year 2020, with the help of our partners, we plan to screen one million children worldwide. As of June 30, 2019, we have screened 790,884 children toward our target goal, and provided those in need with eye glasses, medication, or surgery. The need for pediatric eye care in the Global South is becoming increasingly pronounced in the 21st century. The World Health Organization estimates that 1.4 million children around the world live with blindness, and another 19 million are visually impaired. Most of them live in the poorest regions of Africa and Asia. An estimated 500,000 children lose their sight each year.

Even more disturbing, as many as 60% of sight-impaired children in the developing world will die within a year of losing their ability to see. Those who survive but do not receive treatment face a lifetime of disability, stigma, and diminished prospects for their education and employment. Nearly half of all cases of childhood vision impairment could be treated or prevented if their families and communities had adequate access to vision care.

“Every time we train a teacher, we empower them with our vision of giving back the light to people who want to see.”

- Carlos, an outreach manager at Visualiza

Seva’s partners provide outreach to families in need, through community and school screenings. Our teams connect families with the nearest hospital offering pediatric ophthalmology. Partner clinics provide transportation, accommodation, and food. Meanwhile, parents receive counseling and long-term follow-up plans to ensure children have healthy vision for life.

By helping Seva restore sight to these children, you are literally giving them back their lives. They can play with friends, succeed in school, pursue their dreams, and live full, healthy lives. Thanks to your contributions, these children have a chance at a brighter future.

Collecting and Learning From Evidence

From its inception, Seva has been a data-driven organization at its core. In 1981, we undertook a groundbreaking, comprehensive survey of visual impairment in Nepal - the first of its kind in any country in the world. Since then, everywhere we work, we systematically collect and analyze data, adjusting our methods accordingly. We do this because we constantly strive to better serve a wider range of communities in need of care.

With partners in more than 20 countries, data collection methods often need to be customized to fit the needs of each hospital. Hospitals in the Global Sight Initiative (GSI) network operate with a variety of unique cultural contexts. Outreach in one country may present different challenges from outreach in another country. Through the Global Sight Initiative mentorship model, hospitals are able to improve outreach methods, and bring comprehensive vision care to those who otherwise would not have access.

Your Generosity Is Changing Lives

Plans for the future

Seva is dedicated to doing its part to end avoidable blindness in our lifetime. Our new C20/20 campaign will play a crucial part in achieving this goal, by growing our impact in four key areas:

Eye Care for Children

Children suffering from blindness and low vision often require special procedures and equipment. In the areas where we work, most eye care facilities simply do not have the resources and trained doctors necessary to treat children. As part of this initiative, we will expand our range of school and community screenings, train new pediatric eye care teams, and provide the tools that medical centers require to serve children in need.

Our C20/20 goal is to raise an additional $7 million to provide services for at least 3 million more children worldwide.

Technology

New technology is critical to fighting the blindness epidemic. By providing new equipment to our partners, vision-impairing conditions can be detected, monitored, and treated earlier - decreasing the loss of vision our patients experience. Additionally, by using a combination of artificial intelligence and retinal imaging via telemedicine, patients can receive routine care in the home communities, rather than traveling to distant hospitals for less-frequent screenings.

Through C20/20, we will raise an additional $6 million that will bring the best technology to the hardest-to-reach communities across the globe.

Vision Centers

A primary eye care vision center (PECVC) is a permanent facility in a community that provides eye care services for populations between 25,000 to 100,000 people. They act as an extension of eye hospitals where trained staff perform eye exams, prescribe and provide glasses, and refer to hospitals. Up to 80% of eye care needs can be treated in the PECVC. PECVCs break down the geographic, cultural, and economic barriers that often prevent a population from receiving needed eye care services. Supported by the local leaders (mayor, clergy, school principal), PECVCs have a visible presence in the community.

C20/20 will raise $6 million to fund 140 new vision centers that will reach 4 million people worldwide.

Training & Job Creation

One of the biggest challenges to ending avoidable blindness is ensuring there are enough trained eye health providers of all levels, including allied ophthalmic personnel (paraprofessionals, ophthalmic nurses, and ophthalmologists). We are expanding our commitment to train more people worldwide and expand the capacity of our partners to ensure they are able to provide high-quality care for those in need.

C20/20 will raise an additional $3 million in funds for training and job creation. This will allow us to train thousands of allied ophthalmic personnel, who will have a lifelong impact on their communities, and earn an income that helps support their families.

We thank you for your continued support in making it all possible.

It has been a great year and you truly made the difference for us. We are extremely grateful for your generosity. We want to say a special thank you to the following individuals for all of their hard work!