Happy International Women’s Day

Worldwide, women are more likely to have vision loss than men. Blindness and vision impairment doesn’t just take a toll on the women affected, but also on their families and communities.

The Fred Hollows Foundation is working on achieving gender equity in eye health, and with your support, we’re making strides. You have helped us give so many girls and women access to high quality eye care. You have allowed them to get equal educational and economic opportunities so they can live a life of independence.

Meet 10 incredible women who are thriving thanks to you.
 

1. Sally can enjoy the things she loves once again

Sally lives in a remote community a few hours from Katherine in the Northern Territory. Cataract was giving her ongoing eye pain and blurred vision, and if left untreated, Sally would have become permanently blind.

Thanks to your support, and through our Indigenous Australia Program, this loving grandmother was able to get surgery and have her sight restored.

As Sally said, her world is "brighter, brighter, brighter". She can see her grandkids again, she can cook without worrying about her safety, and she can leave the house to visit her neighbours, friends, and family.
 

2. Dr Sarma fulfills her dream of becoming a doctor

As a little girl, Dr Sarma dreamt of becoming a doctor. She wanted to help heal people after seeing her family members getting eye surgery that transformed their lives.

“I think women are deprived of health in general and more so for eye health… it is not thought of as a priority,”  she said

As a leading surgeon at The Foundation’s partner hospital, the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology in Nepal, Dr Sarma is working to give women the care they need. She said that seeing the happiness on a patient's face after surgery is what drives her to give it her all.

3. Nurse Jonalyn is an Indigenous eye health champion

Jonalyn is a proud Indigenous woman from the Bukidnon group in the Negros Occidental province in the Philippines.

Jonalyn is a nurse at the National Commission for Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), and considers it a privilege to serve her community.

For almost three years, she has brought quality health care closer to Indigenous communities and educated them on important health issues.

“Indigenous people still rely largely on local healers and herbal remedies to cure illness. Sometimes, it is too late when they finally visit the hospital,” she said.

Thanks to the training she received from The Fred Hollows Foundation, Jonalyn has helped facilitate eye screenings in Indigenous schools and communities, education sessions for youth and elders, and eye treatments for the vision impaired.

 

4. Thol can look after her children once again

Thol lives in Cambodia, and is a protective mother who loves her children with all her heart. When she was pregnant with her fourth child, she started losing her eyesight to cataract, and when her and their children needed him the most, her husband abandoned the family. He didn’t want a blind wife.

Scared and alone, Thol felt helpless. Her children left school and started doing odd jobs to put food on the table and look after their newborn baby brother.

Thol and her children’s future did not look good, but then our amazing supporters stepped in, making it possible for Thol to receive life-changing eye surgery.

Thol can see once again and is back on her feet, providing for her young family. Her children are back at school and happy that their mum is smiling once more.
 

5. Dr Zhang is a doctor determined to serve her community

Dr Jun-hua Zhang is serious about learning. She recently underwent three months of The Fred Hollows Foundation-supported eye health training at Hebei Eye Hospital.

Dr Zhang learned to perform cataract surgery, and is committed to serving the residents of her home county Xingtang, which is an under-developed region, when compared to major centres in China like Beijing.

“I was born in Xingtang and I want to serve my people,” she said. “It would be much more convenient for people if the service was readily available at their doorstep.”

6. Nabiritha waited seven years to see

Nabiritha lives in Kenya and was born with cataract. Her mother, Emily, knew that something was wrong with her daughter’s eyes when Nabiritha was just a 4-month-old baby.

“I'd put some toys down for her to play with...and I would find them the way I left them,” Emily said.

With proper medical attention, Nabiritha could see, but the cost of cataract surgery was out of reach for her parents. They earn just $2 a day as farm labourers.

For seven years Nabiritha lived with cataract. She would sit outside her home, singing along to gospel tunes from a small transistor radio. She would hear other children playing nearby, and feel her way along the outer walls of her family’s small mudhouse, trying to find her way to the sound of laughter.

One day Emily received a call with news that thanks to generous Australian donors, The Fred Hollows Foundation could support Nabiritha’s surgery. The Foundation drove Nabiritha and Emily to Sabatia Hospital, where Dr Sarah Sitati and her team removed cataract from both her eyes in just under an hour.

Emily dissolved into tears when her daughter blinked and started to focus her eyes. “Imagine for all those years my child has never known what I look like. I never thought this day would come,” she rejoiced.

7. Nurse Chea is someone other women look up to

Chea Sarom is one of only two ophthalmic nurses at Kampong Chhnang Eye Hospital, and one of the first eye health workers trained by The Fred Hollows Foundation in Cambodia.

Over the past 15 years Sarom has seen the Hospital’s eye unit grow from a small outpost to a large multi-storey facility. This is all thanks to supporters like you, who have enabled The Foundation to invest in strengthening Cambodia’s local eye health workforce.

“I’m very happy to work at the eye unit, because I can help restore sight to people in the community,” she said.

Sarom is a role model for other nursing graduates in the region, and other young girls in her hometown who see the impact she has in her community.

 

8. Cesaria can have a normal childhood

Cesaria was born with cataract and left in the care of her grandmother because her parents couldn’t care for her, as life in Burundi is very hard. Yet, she was still a happy baby, doted on by her grandmother, Veronica.

Thanks to generous Australians, we were able to get Cesaria to Dr Levi, Burundi’s only ophthalmologist trained to operate on children. Dr Levi told us that the earlier congenital cataract is treated, the better. With Cesaria already three years of age, he was cautiously hopeful that the surgery would be a success.

Even though Cesaria couldn’t see, Veronica dressed her in her prettiest dress on the day of the surgery, because it was a special day for them both.

After the surgery, Cesaria was excited, ready for the patches to come off. When Dr Levi took the patches off, cheeky Cesaria’s vibrant personality burst out. She started playing hide and seek with her grandmother and high-fiving the nurses.

Veronica thinks that it’s a miracle that Cesaria can see now.

“Before she couldn’t be a child, but now I have a child. I am still clapping my hands with joy.”

Dr Selina Sency practices medicine at the Awaj Foundation in Bangladesh. She is proud of her profession and has a passion for helping the disadvantaged.

The Awaj Foundation is helping empower garment factory workers in Bangladesh by providing free legal, social and medical care.

A network of 21 Awaj Cafes across Dhaka and Chittagong coordinate services to over 255,000 garment factory workers. With hours spent focusing on fine needlework and repetitive detailed tasks, workers are susceptible to eye conditions, so the service is vital.

Thanks to support from The Fred Hollows Foundation and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, six Awaj Cafes now offer eye screening by Dr Sency and her colleagues.

“There was no eye service until The Fred Hollows Foundation provided training and equipment so it’s easier for workers to get their refractive error testing here as it is better for the workers to get services. I’m very thankful to The Foundation.”

10. Shashetu is free from pain and is caring for her children

Painful and debilitating, trachoma is common in Ethiopia. Many trachoma sufferers in Ethiopia are mothers and children who unknowingly pass infection to each other with every hug or touch.

Shashetu is a young mother of two, who makes a living from weaving baskets and selling them at local markets. She is the sole provider for her young family, and without her eyesight, she can’t work or feed her children.

Trachoma had caused the inner surface of Shashetu’s eyelids to scar, turning her eyelashes inwards to painfully scratch the front of her eye. But with help from generous people like you, Shashetu received the operation she needed. You also allowed us to give her children antibiotics to break the vicious cycle of reinfection between mother and child.

“I no longer worry about going blind one day. I no longer worry about my children’s future,” a smiling Shashetu said.