Connecting heroes
Thanks to our generous supporters, our health heroes are able to work day in, day out to make a life-changing difference. Here, you can read some of their stories.
Support our health heroes
DONATEThanks to dedicated health workers, volunteers and teams who work tirelessly to protect sight, Sightsavers was able to treat more than six million people for trachoma last year.
We were also able to perform more than 497,000 sight-restoring cataract operations, changing thousands of lives.
But we couldn’t do it without you. So far, supporters across Ireland have raised enough funds to protect more than 53,000 communities around the world from blinding trachoma.
The incredible Sightsavers heroes remind us of how much we can achieve when we work together. Together, we can reach even more communities and continue to make a life-changing difference. We hope that you are as inspired as we are by their stories of hope, commitment, and compassion.
Support a Hero
Has someone in your organisation gone above and beyond this year? Celebrate your workplace hero and help Sightsavers fight avoidable blindness.
Find out more“If river blindness is eliminated, I will be happy and my family will also be happy for the fact that I have helped to make it happen.”
Meet Mary: mother of seven, retired teacher, Sightsavers volunteer and trusted pillar of her community. Since 1975, Mary has volunteered as a community health worker in Ghana, helping to fight diseases including polio – and is now hoping to eliminate river blindness, a disease which has devastated her community, Asubende. Mary is the kind of person who gets the job done – her passion for helping her community and protecting the next generation was celebrated in 2014 when she won a national award for her work as part of the river blindness programme.
“When the patient sees, it’s so beautiful. It’s the most rewarding feeling one can ever get.”
Gladys is passionate about helping to improve eye care in Uganda and works tirelessly to help perform around 18 operations a week. Her favourite moment is when the patient’s bandages are removed and they can see again. Gladys was, incredibly, the first and only cataract surgeon and ophthalmologist when she started working at Moroto hospital in Uganda – a hospital that serves a population of about 1.2 million people. Gladys is just one of the talented cataract surgeons whose training has been supported by people like you, and despite the challenges she faces, Gladys is fully committed to making life-changing surgery happen.
Read her story
“Saving people’s sight isn’t just a job: it’s my calling”
Mr Ndalela travels from village to village in Western Zambia by motorbike, trying to reach as many people as possible in remote communities who have little or no access to health care. Ndalela's big, charming personality puts everyone he meets at ease straight away. He is an ophthalmologist who is determined to save sight in rural areas to help not just individuals, but entire communities. He knows the impact sight loss can have on children’s education, people’s mental wellbeing and families’ futures. Ndalela is driven by people’s gratitude and aims to do everything he can to save the sight of even more people. Your support is helping hard-working health workers like Mr Ndalela reach and treat even more communities.
“To see people returning to their families and being able to function and fend for themselves is what makes me happy.”
Jeremiah gains the trust of the people he meets instantly with his beaming smile. He’s a big character, full of laughter and jokes, but also an incredibly focused, intelligent and passionate man. Jeremiah is a “proud Sightsavers student”, who received training through Sightsavers to become an ophthalmic nurse in 1999. Now, Jeremiah travels village to village in Zimbabwe to protect families from trachoma, often in extreme weather conditions, which make roads and remote communities near-impossible to access. Jeremiah says the best part of his job is being able to see the transformation of someone’s life and the ripple effects it has on their family, community and the economy of the country.
Health heroes need your support
