Dr Rodger doing microscope photography as part of campaign onchoceriasis, Nigeria 1954
Sightsavers marks 60 years of saving sight
January 2010 marks the 60th anniversary of international development NGO Sightsavers. Working in some of the world's poorest countries Sightsavers was founded in 1950 by the late Sir John Wilson.
Sightsavers now works in over 30 developing countries across Africa, Asia and Caribbean to prevent and cure blindness and to support those who are irreversibly blind through education, training and counselling. Over the last six decades Sightsavers has treated over 206.8 million people for blinding and potentially blinding conditions, and more than 7.1 million operations have been carried out to restore sight.
2010 will also mark the 150 millionth treatment for river blindness, or Onchocerciasis as it is also known. Sightsavers' founder Sir John Wilson, who was himself blind, first witnessed the devastating effects of river blindness when he visited Ghana in 1947.
Working with local governments and community-based organisations has been vital to Sightsavers' success and has enabled the charity to maximise the impact of its programmes. Since the 1980s, Sightsavers has worked with local partners to train half a million people at all levels to become community volunteers, specialist teachers, nurses and specialist surgeons. This skilled workforce has enabled the charity to:
- Perform 5 million cataract operations
- Undertake over 77,000 trichiasis operations
- Provide 4.4 million people with refractive error treatment
- Reach 91,000 people with rehabilitation training
John Fleming, Chief Executive of Sightsavers (Ireland) commented: "Sightsavers' vital work depends on local government and partners playing their role in our fight to eliminate avoidable blindness and in our work to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people. But there is still much more work to be done - today there are still 45 million people in the world who are blind, yet 75% of this is preventable or curable. Without the support of our donors, Sightsavers and our partners will work tirelessly to tackle this figure"
