Gender Equity

In developing countries, women and girls are far less likely to have access to eye care services because of the many barriers they face. Lack of education and financial resources, limited decision-making power, and restrictions on travelling alone means women and girls often don’t get the care they need. Seva and our partners help women and girls overcome these barriers.

Unfortunately, it is sometimes their responsibilities within the home that make women and girls more susceptible to certain eye conditions, such as trachoma and trichiasis. Additionally, male adults and children are often given preferential treatment by their families and are more likely to receive eye care should they need it.

Seva works hard to help women and girls overcome these barriers and to make high quality care universally available.

Increasing gender equity within eye care is central to Seva’s work. By helping our program partners improve their data collection, we can accurately track how many women and girls are receiving services. This data is vital in assessing the effectiveness of our interventions designed to achieve gender equity.

Seva enables our partners to provide outreach and education, community screenings, transportation arrangements, and affordable care to ensure women and girls can access life-changing services and avoid visual impairment and blindness.

Gender Equity

In developing countries, women and girls are far less likely to have access to eye care services because of the barriers they face. From lack of education and financial resources to limited decision-making power, Seva and our partners help women and girls overcome barriers.

Female Leaders in Eye Care

Supporting women to become leaders in the field of eye care, and increasing women's access to eye care, are two of Seva's top priorities. We are proud to feature these five women and their inspirational stories.

Lumbini Eye Institute's Surgical Team is 70% Female

In addition to the life-changing impact the surgeons have on each person they serve, this particular Seva-supported surgical team represents another major success 70% of the surgeons at Lumbini are women.

Gender and Sustainability: Seva Influences the International Eye Care Agenda

Thanks to leadership from Seva's Dr. Suzanne Gilbert, the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) has formed new working groups to take up two key issues in the Vision 2020 campaign to prevent blindness — gender and sustainability.

Seva's Vision for Gender Equality in Eye Care

Every five seconds a person goes blind somewhere around the world, and every minute a child goes blind. Even more disturbing is the fact that two out of three people who are blind are women and girls; most of them living in areas of developing countries where they have limited and unequal access to sight restoring services.