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HAPPY WORLD SIGHT DAY

EVERYONE COUNTS

Home World Sight Day
As a retired orthoptist, it’s truly special to know that this year’s World Sight Day theme is Love Your Eyes with the key action Everyone Counts. I think it’s so important that every single one of us has access to high quality eye care. Everyone should be able to exercise their right to sight, including people like Juan who live in some of the most remote and impoverished parts of the world.

Living in a remote farming village in Lao PDR, Juan was rapidly losing sight to a mature cataract. She couldn’t work in the field anymore or help around the house, and not being able to access eye care meant that she was unfortunately going to become permanently blind.
“I went to the paddy field and it felt like something was in my eye that I couldn’t get out. It became like a wall,”


- Juan says.


“I just stay home,” Juan adds.

“I used to plant corn. I used to fish with the net and I would cook. I cannot find food. I have to wait for someone from my family to bring me food. I cannot go anywhere. I cannot do anything.”

Juan’s situation was truly heartbreaking, until someone like you stepped in and helped us restore sight to her through mobile outreach.

“Mobile outreach and surgery is very important in Lao PDR. Poor families can’t afford to travel to district or provincial hospitals. If we have no mobile service, many, many more people will be blind,” Dr Phetsomone, who performed Juan’s surgery, says.
“Every eye is an eye. When you are doing surgery there, that is just as important as if you were doing eye surgery on the Prime Minister or King.”


- Fred Hollows


Fred knew that every eye counts. Our caring and compassionate supporters like you have shown time and again that you agree with Fred. Everytime someone like you supports our sight-restoring work, you show people like Juan that she counts.
 

MAKE SOMEONE COUNT BY DONATING NOW

It worries me that there are 43.3 million people who are blind worldwide, but luckily more than 90% of it is preventable or treatable. But the other worrying thing is that over 90% of these cases are in middle or low income countries, where eye care isn’t easily accessible.

Thanks to the kindness of people like you, The Foundation is able to restore sight to people like Juan in the most remote parts of the world by training local health workers and strengthening local health systems.

With your generous support, we can make a difference in the lives of vulnerable people in the 25 countries where we work, showing them that they count.

PLEASE HELP US RESTORE SIGHT THIS WORLD SIGHT DAY

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