world sight day
World Sight Day is an international day of awareness, held annually on the second Thursday of October to focus attention on the global issue of avoidable blindness and visual impairment. The theme of World Sight Day 2009 (WSD09) is: Gender and Eye Health – equal access to care.
Why does Planeterra want to spread the word about World Sight Day?
The World Health Organization states that one of the most cost-effective methods of reducing poverty is to restore sight.
- There are an estimated 45 million blind people worldwide, and 90% live in developing countries.
- Most of these blind are young girls and women, because they receive less access to eye care than men.
- 75% of blindness is either preventable or treatable. Cataract is the leading cause of blindness and can be reversed with a relatively simple $50 surgery.
- Often those affected by blindness live in such remote areas that they have no access to any form of health care.
Planeterra funds camps in remote villages in Tibet each year. Often the camps are accessible only by foot, and all the surgical instruments and supplies are delivered on the backs of Sherpas.
One woman travelled for ten days, led by her husband’s hand, across trecherous mountain trails, to reach a sight camp that would mean she could see her young son’s face for the first time. Her story is just one of many.
Why Tibet?
Tibet has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world. Most of this blindness is due to cataract, a disease associated with aging but also prevalent among children and the working age group who are those responsible for Tibet's economic growth. Many people often unaware of available treatments, or simply unable to reach a hospital because of poverty and lack of transportation. With scattered populations spread across great distances, surgical eye camps are the most efficient way to treat the high rate of cataract.
Our support contributes to the valuable work of Seva Canada who conduct 3,500 sight restoring surgeries on an annual basis, but this volume needs to be tripled in order to eliminate preventable blindness in Tibet.
Planeterra partners with SEVA Canada to provide effective sight solutions that are:
- locally managed,
- high volume - low cost,
- directed to those most in need,
- accessible to women and girls, and
- sustainable.
Learn more about the Right to Sight Campaign at www.v2020.org
How is Planeterra able to fund a camp every year?
Generous donors and travellers who see how far $50 could go to make a difference make donations each year. Individual efforts add up!
On September 26 Planeterra and Gap Adventures staff, friends, family and other supporters from the community came out to Take a Hike for Planeterra – and raised almost $3000 towards our $10,000 goal for a 2010 eye camp and donations continue to roll in. This will provide many people with sight restoring surgeries - one Saturday of fresh air and exercise will provide dramatic improvements to the daily lives of many. Over the past two years Planeterra-funded camps have restored the sight of hundreds of Tibetans, and provided eyecare to hundreds more.
Her Sight is Worth it Contest
To raise awareness of the gender inequity in eye care, Seva has launched an online video contest, Her Sight Is Worth It.
Planeterra is sponsoring the Grand Prize, a new MacBook, in celebration of World Sight Day, part of our ongoing efforts to help prevent and treat blindness in remote communities around the world in partnership with Seva.
Check out our video of last year's camp in Tibet!
If you would like to contribute and help us reach our $10,00 goal for a 2010 sight camp, Donate Now, any amount helps. $50 is enough to bring back someone's sight, and change their life forever.
