News
Autumn 2013
250
million thanks!
How you – and Nahbila – helped us reach a crucial milestone in the fight against river blindness
Photo: © Arjen van de Merwe/Sightsavers
News
The best start in life Two prominent MPs recently visited Malawi to witness some of Sightsavers’ “incredibly innovative and exciting work” in early childhood development.
Dame Tessa Jowell and Shadow Secretary of State Ivan Lewis visited the Chilomoni Resource Centre in Blantyre district – which runs a drop-in session for mothers of babies with visual impairments – to observe best practice in the field, and they weren’t disappointed. “We’ve seen some incredibly innovative and exciting work from Sightsavers,” said Ivan, “working with visually impaired children to ensure they get the best start in life against
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the odds. Getting it right in the early years is the morally right thing to do but also the smart thing – these children are the parents and workers of tomorrow.” Dame Tessa, the architect of SureStart centres in the UK, was similarly enthused: “It’s been an incredible visit; we’ve met lots of very dedicated and motivated people. Sightsavers shines a light on the needs of people who don’t have a voice. They are championing disabled
people, children and parents and it’s starting to have an impact.” Visiting parents learn the importance of nutrition and stimulation in the first thousand days of a child’s life and are given specific guidance and support. Making sure that children are encouraged to play, learn and develop is crucial during this vital period and sets them on a path to successful, healthy adult lives.
Find diaries and more photos from the Malawi visit online at www.sightsavers.org/our_work
Welcome
Hope for the next generation
Meet our cover star, Nahbila! This six-year-old Cameroonian was the proud recipient of our 250 millionth treatment of Mectizan® to protect her from river blindness. Premier League footballer Benoit Assou-Ekotto travelled back to his homeland to give the landmark dose to Nahbila on our behalf. You can read more about her, her family and this very special event, on the next page. We’re delighted to be able to share some other recent landmark moments with you in this magazine. On page 11 you can read about two great new developments: how we teamed
up with partners to change copyright laws to benefit readers with visual impairments and how, on a more local level, our staff in The Gambia are celebrating a commitment from their government to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. While fast-track interventions like our strike against river blindness are making a real difference right now, we really think that this news proves that our advocacy and campaigning work will achieve long-term change for the better – on a vast scale.
Contents A future worth celebrating 4 Marking the distribution of Sightsavers’ 250 millionth Mectizan® treatment New horizons for Rehan The story of one little boy’s life-changing cataract operation, by his father, Rafique
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Technology for all 10 The developments that will open up a world of workplace equality Be a Sightsaver!
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Right: Nahbila is just one of the millions of people you’ve helped protect against river blindness so far this year. Photo: © Mike Goldwater/Sightsavers
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Happy day, healthy future
Spurs and Cameroon football star Benoit Assou-Ekotto went back to his roots to mark a major milestone in the fight against river blindness...
Country profile: Cameroon Cameroon, West Africa, enjoys relatively high political and social stability. We run eye health, social inclusion, education and community development projects here. • Population Just over 20,000,000
• Area 475,442 km2
• Currency Central African Franc (CFA) • Official languages French and English
A crowd gathers around the special guest, chanting his name. It’s Spurs and Cameroon footballer Benoit Assou-Ekotto and he’s travelled to the remote north west of his homeland for a celebration – but it’s not football related. He’s here to mark the distribution of Sightsavers’ 250 millionth Mectizan® treatment, a milestone in the fight against river blindness (onchocerciasis). Bali is seven hours’ drive from the capital Yaoundé. As it’s the rainy season, there’s a thick layer of sticky mud that even the 4x4s struggle to negotiate. Everything else as far as the eye can see is green. A group of children play in the river, scooping up water in bottles and spraying it at one another. A woman washes her clothes in the shallower pools. Avoiding the river isn’t an option for the villagers but it’s the breeding ground for the flies that spread the worm that causes river blindness. Generations apart Julianna knows the reality of that risk. She has been sick and in pain for the last 20 of her 77 years, with excruciating itching all over her body. Sixteen years ago, the infestation finally, irreversibly, took her sight. Now, she tells us that she just wishes her suffering could end. Julianna lives with her son Buma, his wife Janet, their 18-year-old daughter Nadine
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and Nahbila, who’s six. Nahbila isn’t shy or intimidated by so many people coming to the family home. Rather she smilingly poses for photos as the real star of the day. It’s this bright-eyed little girl who is to ceremoniously take a tablet to protect her sight for the future.
The whole community will be protected today Centre stage Nahbila and Benoit move on to the grandstand, where local dance groups take it in turns to entertain the crowd with impressive routines. One group performs a play about a family that takes Mectizan® and another that refuses. It’s a powerful platform for a community with low literacy rates and few televisions. The Lord Mayor makes a speech praising the volunteers who distribute Mectizan® in the community. The crowd cheers – they respect the distributors who come to their homes each year. Now it’s Nahbila in the spotlight. She and Benoit are called on stage and journalists and camera crews surround them, jostling to capture the moment when the youngster swallows her medicine. Suddenly the dance and music groups burst into life and all perform at once. The
Photo Š Mike Goldwater/Sightsavers
It costs just
35p
to protect a family of five from river blindness for a year music is deafening and the atmosphere electric. The whole community will go on to be protected today and Sightsavers will come one step closer to our goal of eliminating river blindness in the areas in which we work by 2020 – a future worth celebrating!
Top: Benoit and Nahbila. Above left and right: The event was marked by dancing and the performance of a play about river blindness. Left: The landmark dose is handed to Nahbila. Far left: the little girl and her grandmother, Julianna, who has been blinded by the disease.
Find more pictures and stories from when Benoit met Nahbila here: www.sightsavers.org/250m 5 5
6 Five-year-old Dafhrath Meghwal is pictured with his mother and grandmother after successful surgery for catara
act at Gomabai Hospital, Central India, which is supported by Sightsavers.
Photo: Š Peter Caton/Sightsavers
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We’re ver rting o o p p u s
0 0 0 , 0 21 ct operations .
All photos © Peter Caton/Sightsavers
catara an’s in 2013 h like Re u help us? Will yo
Peace of mind – all thanks to you When this little boy’s parents realised their son couldn’t see, they were worried sick. His father, Rafique Pathan Khan, tells us how your donations supported the operations that put his mind at rest. When Rehan was six months old, we realised that his eyesight was poor as he was not able to focus on my hand that was close up to his face. When I realised that Rehan was not able to see properly, I became apprehensive. What will happen to my child – how will he study? It was a very confusing and anxious time.
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However, our confidence grew when we came to this hospital. We had visited many doctors before, but with no progress; they were not confident about operating on Rehan because he was so young. Finally, a doctor recommended that we visit Gomabai hospital, which was 200 kilometres (124 miles) away from our village.
We met a neighbour who was also operated on for cataract, and he recommended the hospital. It took us seven hours on the bus to travel here and we were very nervous all the way here, and during surgery. However, our confidence grew when we came to the Gomabai hospital. We will now become Gomabai
Will you send a gift today and help give someone back their sight? I would like to make a donation of: £28 – enough to help pay for a sight-restoring adult cataract operation £50 – enough to help pay for a sight-restoring child cataract operation or my choice of £ Title Initials Address
Surname
Postcode
AN13NL
I enclose a Cheque Postal Order (made payable to Sightsavers) I would like to pay by MasterCard Visa
CAF Voucher
CAF CharityCard
Amex
Card Number Start date
/
End date
/
Name(s) as on Card Signature(s)
hospital ambassadors of goodwill! They operated on one eye last week, and the other today. Now the operations have been a success and we know he is able to see I am so happy. Rehan was not going to school due to his eye problems, but now after the operation he will begin studying at school. We are very happy as he will now be able to study and live a quality life.
Now the operations have been a success and we know he is able to see I am so happy. Above left: It’s hard to tell who is more delighted, Rehan or his father! Top: Before the operation. Second from top: the post-operation checkup makes sure the operation was successful.
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I’d like to make my gifts worth 25% more at no extra cost to me! I’d like Sightsavers to claim Gift Aid on all donations I make now, into the future and any made in the last four years. I confirm I have paid or will pay an amount of Income Tax and/or Capital Gains Tax each tax year, 6 April to 5 April that is at least equal to the amount of tax (currently 25p for each £1 given) that all the charities or CASCs that I donate to will reclaim in the same period. I understand that other taxes such as VAT and Council Tax do not qualify. I’d like Sightsavers to claim Gift Aid on my donations (please tick) Signature
Date
Please return your completed form to: Sightsavers, FREEPOST SN1457, Halifax Road, MELKSHAM SN12 7BR For security reasons please do not send cash. Your donation will be used to support our work wherever the need is greatest. Thank you.
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News
Technology for life
All photos: © Sightsavers
Kate and Stacy have very different roles at Sightsavers, but they share a passion for technology and the difference it can make to the working life of a person living with visual impairment...
Kate Bennell: “I’m responsible for supporting the fundraising team here at Haywards Heath with all sorts of admin tasks. As I have very limited vision, I have several pieces of specialist software and hardware that make it possible for me to use my
computer, access paperwork and participate in meetings. I use a screen magnifier program to zoom in on the screen; a program which reads out documents, web pages, emails and spreadsheets; and a digital voice recorder, on which I record meetings and presentations. I can also access emails through my telephone, listening and responding to them verbally. These pieces of technology allow me to work independently, reading or listening to content without risk of headaches and eyestrain. Without the technology, office work would be almost impossible for me.
Although I sometimes take all this technology for granted, I consider myself lucky to be living in a country where it’s available. For many people in the countries in which we work, even learning to read Braille is out of reach, let alone accessing the digital world. Thankfully, Sightsavers’ partners are working with visually impaired people in some of the poorest countries of the world to enable them both to live independently and participate fully in their communities – often with technology as simple as a white cane.”
Stacy Rowe: “My job is about designing better ways of teaching in locations that lack the kind of infrastructure we take for granted here in the UK. My passion is maths but it’s notoriously difficult to teach maths to students with visual impairment, which means these young people are at an immediate disadvantage. Yet if they had access to the right kind of technology, they’d have greater independence in all areas of life. With the right device someone with a disability can sit school examinations, engage
with their community, contribute at home, raise a family, play sport, and develop a career. Access to technology varies dramatically even within countries. On a recent trip to Bangladesh, a colleague saw students in one primary school use older-style Braille equipment, while others had access to computers and JAWS screen reader software, meaning that children with visual impairment could participate alongside their sighted peers. Sightsavers is taking this challenge just as seriously as
the fight against painful and blinding diseases such as trachoma or onchocerciasis. We’re actively supporting the people in each country and each locality who are as enthusiastic about ‘technology for life’ as we are – and we’re already beginning to see the results.”
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The end
Pain and gain in Mali
The right tools for Mohith
When he was four years old, Mohith’s parents noticed he had vision problems. He was diagnosed with the incurable condition retinitis pigmentosa, and by the age of 13 he had lost almost 80 per cent of his vision. Studying in mainstream school became difficult. An introduction to Enable India (a Sightsavers partner in Bangalore) gave Mohith access to computers and screen reading software, and a whole new world was opened up to him. He underwent life skills training supported by Sightsavers and got a job with the third-largest IT company in India, in their HR department.
d of the boo k famine The World Inte llectual Property Orga nization has agreed to remove restrictions p reventing visually impair ed people from sharing accessible books betwee n countries. With less than one per cent of books freely available in th e developing w orld, we think this really is a story with a happy ending !
Sightsavers’ work in one of the most troubled parts of Africa has been boosted by the Conrad N Hilton Foundation in the form of an $880,000 grant – subject to our raising matching funds. The donation is for identifying and operating on people with trichiasis, the advanced form of the blinding neglected tropical disease trachoma, across 20 districts of Mali, a nation riven by conflict. The safety of our and our partners’ in-country staff and volunteers remains a priority, alongside our mission to reach the most vulnerable of the population when they need us the most. Surgery to save the sight of someone whose eyes have been damaged by scarring from repeated infections costs an average of £8. You might have seen the above image, representing the pain inflicted by the infection, in our ‘Blinking Hell’ adverts.
Persistence pays off Blind and partially sighted people in The Gambia are to benefit at last from the legal protections enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, thanks to the hard work of local Sightsavers staff. Momodou Njie from our Gambian office explains: “We and a host of partners have been working for this day since 2008. “We raised awareness of the issues and showcased the abilities of disabled people, using TV talk shows, workshops and meetings, particularly with the Ministers of Health
and Justice.
“Now that The Gambia has Gambian Alimatu Manga, 34, is now finally ratified the Convention able to get out and about by herself, we’re keeping it in the public thanks to mobility training eye to help ensure it is implemented.”
Magic numbers How many operations? In what countries? How many people trained? You can find out exactly how far your donations reach in two new publications, our Annual Review and Annual Report and Financial Statements for 2012. Download them at: www.sightsavers.org/annualreview
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Be a Sightsaver!
Day and night
It started with a bang, ended at dawn and in between raised more than £300,000 for Sightsavers. The Henderson Charity Clay Shoot, hosted by supporter Tim Eliot-Cohen at his Hilldrop Farm home in Wiltshire, was followed by two auctions, with lots donated by a host of highprofile corporates. During the day children’s entertainers Sharky & George kept little folk amused while Chris Neal from Hawkeye showed his amazing birds of
prey. The finale, supported by Blistering Events, Kerb Food, Diageo and Guinness, performers Mad Cows and Bogus Brothers, and DJ Hugo Heathcote, was attended by over 1,000 neon-clad revellers. One effusive guest told us: “It was an amazing day’s shooting followed by fundraising and frolicking in a frenzy of fluorescence.” And all resulting in the funds for thousands of life-changing operations and treatments around the world – fabulous!
Training starts here
Eye-catching look
Thanks to all our Sightsavers supporters who ran in both the London and Brighton marathons this year! It’s now time to plan for taking part in 2014 – if you’d like to run for us in either of these events, please email events@sightsavers.org.
Socially conscious fashionistas Stephane and Natalie Boss-Campana have joined forces with British creative artists Vin & Omi to produce a unique set of T shirts – in aid of Sightsavers. Find out more and order your own tee (each made from more than a dozen recycled plastic bottles) at www.bydfault.com.
Our mission To eliminate avoidable blindness and promote equal opportunities for people with disabilities.
Email info@sightsavers.org Tel 01444 446600 Fax 01444 446688 Donation hotline 0800 089 2020
Registered charity numbers: 207544 & SC038110
Head Office Sightsavers Grosvenor Hall, Bolnore Road, Haywards Heath West Sussex RH16 4BX
Website www.sightsavers.org Facebook www.facebook.com/SightsaversUK Twitter www.twitter.com/sightsavers
Sightsavers is also known as The Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind