Seva Canada: A Solution in Sight

“Hundreds of thousands of cataract operations are impressive, but to change one person’s life with sight-restoring surgery is magnificent. That is the reason we do it.”
Dr. Peter Nash, ophthalmologist, Seva board member and legacy donor

Here is one story of a life changed through the gift of sight.

Tsering Dolma, age 72, has been a widow for many years. Although she has a son, he works far away so she lives alone. In her village in Tibet, she is the loneliest woman because all the other older women have some family members living with them.

Since 2008, Tsering Dolma’s vision deteriorated from cataracts, but she had no idea of the reason for this, which caused many problems in her life.

One day in the summer of 2009, Tsering Dolma was leaving her house to attend a village council meeting, and she fell down the stairs because her right eye was blind and her left eye had blurry vision. The fall seriously injured her knees, and she ended up bedridden for a month.

The following winter, it snowed a lot in her village and the streets were very slippery. Tsering was afraid of having another fall, so she decided to stay at home until it stopped snowing and the snow on the ground melted. The snow, however, didn’t melt that quickly. She was stuck in her house for seven days. She recalled, “During the seven days, I felt like a prisoner because I had nobody to talk to and I was completely isolated.” Tsering often believed that she had basic good health, but without eyesight she was powerless.

In January 2010, her son brought her to the Seva-supported eye hospital in Lhasa and Tsering’s sight was successfully restored. Tsering never expected that she would be able to see again and she was thankful that it actually happened to her.  On leaving Lhasa to return to her village 1,700 kilometers away, she said she hoped to work in her barley field, visit her neighbors every day, and to travel to visit her son several times every few months. She smiled and said, “I won’t be a prisoner ever again, and I will be enjoying my life as much as I can!”

Congratulations and deepest thanks to Jenna Goodhand, Jocelin On and Elizabeth Wong of  “Love at First Sight” for winning Love in Action 2010 and for helping to restore sight and prevent blindness in Tibet. The funds that they and other Love in Action 2010 participants raised will support a Seva surgical eye camp in Tibet this summer and will bring sight to hundreds of people who are blind from cataracts.

The three University of Waterloo students were chosen at the Love in Action 2010 gala on March 17 in Toronto. The event was a great success with over 400 attendees.

Bruce Poon Tip, head of GAP Adventures, Theresa Laurico from Love in Action 2010, and Liz Manning from the Planeterra Foundation selected the winning team.  Here’s their video: http://loveinaction2010.org/teams/

The “Love at First Sight” team wins a voluntour trip for three to Peru, courtesy of GAP Adventures.

“Love at First Sight” asked people this:  Close your eyes and recall all the things that bring you joy just simply by the act of seeing them. Now imagine losing that for life.

“The main focus of our campaign was to get as many people as possible to consider how blessed they are to have their eyesight while showing our love to those in our community and Tibet. We organized and attended 7 events and at every one of them we asked those who attended “What they would miss?” and had them write it on a whiteboard. We made videos with the photos we collected and uploaded them to a website we made and sent a call-out to the world to support the cause and send in photos of what they would miss. We received photos from as far as Hungary, Korea and Japan. In total we collected photos of over 250 people holding signs of what they would miss.”

Seva Canada would like to thank Theresa Laurico, GAP Adventures, Planeterra Foundation and Elleven Productions for all they have done to gift the gift of sight to the blind in Tibet. We’ll keep you posted about the eye camp, scheduled to take place this summer!

In the meantime, here’s a video slideshow of Planeterra’s 2009 Seva eye camp in Tibet:

What Makes Seva Unique?

Seva Canada is often asked, “What makes you different from other eye care organizations?”

While many, if not most, eye care organizations are committed to restoring sight and eliminating blindness. Each has its own approach to this health crisis.

Seva Canada is guided by these principles:

*   Our belief in equal access to eye care for all.
*   Our belief that, with adequate resources, all people can meet their own needs.
*   Our commitment to working with international partners to build local, sustainable eye care programs.
*   Our respect for cultural, ethnic, spiritual and other forms of diversity.
*   Our commitment to inform and inspire Canadians to join us in achieving our mission.

Specifically Seva Canada:

*  Invests in the creation and testing of innovative strategies to eliminate preventable and treatable blindness. Seva and our partners are always learning new, more efficient and more equitable ways to deliver services.
*  Focuses on capacity building and long-term results. We find excellent partners and maintain our relationship until our funding is no longer required.
*  Embeds gender-sensitive strategies in all of its programs, provides each partner with the funding and expertise to achieve gender equality and teaches all of its partners how to monitor the effectiveness of their strategies.
*  Bases all program decisions on “best practices” developed through practical on-the-ground experience with operational research. Seva Canada has considerable scientific strengths and its staff and partners are often considered to be global leaders in specific areas of eye care.
*  Makes a concerted effort to support and document the knowledge it has gained which has resulted in significant changes to programs and practices.
*  Supports capacity building of key partner institutions to become regional and global leaders. This “multiplier effect” has increased Seva Canada’s impact far beyond the funding provided for program work.
*  Works with a wide variety of partners including district and national health ministries, Canadian and international companies, international and national NGOs, service organizations and community-based organizations.

Moshi, Tanzania March 10, 2010
Penny Lyons, Seva Canada’s Executive Director

It is wonderful to be back in Tanzania. KCCO is humming with activity as guests arrive from all corners of the globe. The reason for all this activity is KCCO, together with the British Columbia Centre for Epidemiologic and International Ophthalmology and Seva Canada are hosting a gender and health meeting March 11-13 “Reducing Gender Inequity in Eye Care – Translating our Knowledge into Action”. Funding for this meeting was provided by a grant from the Canadian Institute for Health Research.  Participants include representatives from The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, the Tanzanian office of CIDA, the International Development Research Council, Seva partners from Tibet, Nepal, Egypt, India and Seva Foundation as well as participants from across Africa.

The goals of the meeting are to: share findings and effective techniques to reduce gender bias; share that knowledge at the national and international level; determine how to use these strategies, developed through eye care, in other health systems such as maternal and child health care; and to create new collaborations across regions and countries.

One of the key participants in this meeting is Herieth Mganga, KCCO’s gender and blindness coordinator. I had the opportunity to go into the field with Herieth yesterday. Our purpose was to interview Sentinels – women in the communities who are trained to find people who are suffering from debilitating eye conditions, like cataract, and ensure they receive the treatment they require.

We interviewed four Sentinels in the Hai District on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. These four women, Nkiraeshiwakwa, Hilda, Aziza and Raheima, have little formal education but have been trained by KCCO to detect eye conditions and to provide information and support to those needing services. They are an amazing group of women: dedicated, compassionate and determined. In the two years since the Sentinel program was implemented, the number of women, children and men accessing services has increased dramatically. They are treated with respect and admiration and now provide feedback to KCCO on how the program might be improved to reach more people in need.

While in the field we also met with some of the patients, found by the Sentinels and treated through KCCO. The patients, men and women alike, were grateful for the eye care provided and were glowing with praise and pride for the women in their community who had made it possible for them to see again.

On Tuesday February 2, the students of Mme Grunfeld and Mme Lee at Tomekichi Homma Elementary School in Richmond, BC presented Seva Canada with a giant cheque for $2,146.70.

This very generous amount was raised by the students and will be used to restore sight by funding cataract surgeries in remote areas of the developing world. There are 45 million blind people in the world and most of this blindness is caused by cataract, the clouding of the eye’s natural lens, and can be treated with a short operation costing $50 or less.

The cheque was presented to Seva board member, Susan Erdmann, and Seva office manager, Annie Chen, at a special ceremony at the school.

Susan, who has traveled at her own expense and seen Seva’s work first hand. Susan told the children about the three eye camps in Tibet that she witnessed, at which hundreds of blind people were led in by their family members or caregivers and who, after a short operation lasting 15 minutes or less, they had their sight restored.

Seva Canada is very grateful to the students of Mme Grunfeld and Mme Lee for their hard work and compassion in helping to restore sight to the world’s blind. The money raised will be used to help fund a Seva eye camp in Tibet, an area with the highest rate of blindness in the world.

Cataract scare opened Burnaby woman’s eyes to world

Burnaby woman, 28, realized how lucky she was to have access to good treatment

By Elaine O’Connor, The Province January 21, 2010

After a series of medical treatments, Burnaby’s Karin DuBois was shocked to be diagnosed with cataracts.

She was only in her 20s.

Thankfully, doctors assured her that the risk of losing her sight was small.

“They told me it’s such a simple surgery and that the chances of success are so high that it’s not even a concern — the chances of me going blind are very slim,” the 28-year-old recalled.

That’s far from the case for millions in the developing world.

Ninety per cent of the world’s 45 million blind live in impoverished countries; two-thirds are female.

Most of these cases are preventable. The most common cause of blindness is cataracts, which could be removed with a simple 15-minute, $50 surgery. But women and girls are only half as likely as men to get treated.

That’s one of the surprising statistics DuBois learned while creating an awareness video recently for SEVA Canada.

The Vancouver-based registered charity funds eye-care clinics and trains doctors to perform cataract surgeries in seven developing countries: Tanzania, India, Guatemala, Cambodia, Nepal and Tibet.

DuBois’ video earned her second place in SEVA’s national Her Sight Is Worth It video contest. The winners were announced Wednesday.

The B.C. Institute of Technology grad and Global B.C. assistant director said she wanted to create the video as a way of giving back.

“I’m lucky enough to live in Canada, where medical access is available. If I was in India or elsewhere, my chances of being permanently blind would be so much greater,” she said.

First-place winner Derick Groves of Victoria admitted he had little knowledge of the issue before entering the contest.

“It’s one of the things you don’t really think about,” said the 33-year-old film-school grad.

“It is a little surprising to see the percentage of women that make up the total number of blind and how little care they get.”

Third place went to Ontario-native Rhonda Kara Hanah, who temporarily lost sight in one eye after contracting an infection in Mexico.

SEVA launched the contest last fall, calling on Canadians 13 and older to submit three-minute movies about blindness in women and girls in the developing world.

The contest, sponsored by GAP Adventures and the Planterra Foundation, came with a unique reward: The group is restoring the sight of one woman and girl in the names of each of the three winners.

Penny Lyons, SEVA Canada’s executive director, said the entries served to highlight the “direct link between poverty and blindness.”

“As soon as you restore someone’s sight,” Lyons explained, “they can go to school or work, so by treating blindness in women, you are reducing poverty effectively and inexpensively, especially as it’s been very clearly documented that women are the key to sustainability in their families, communities and nations.”

The films, online at www.seva.ca/contest.htm, will be screened in 12 Canadian cities as part of the World Community Film Festival, which comes to Vancouver on Jan. 31.

eoconnor@theprovince.com
© Copyright (c) The Province

The team at Seva Nepal are brilliant! Kandel, Parami and Shravan work tirelessly to bring eye care to the very poor, those in remote areas, women and children. They are models of compassion in action.

Here’s a series of photos that Parami sent us from an eye camp that took place in Terathum, Nepal this autumn. It illustrates the tremendous burden (literally) that cataract blindness places on families and communities.

This woman was one of 5 patients who were carried on the backs of their relatives to the Seva-supported eye camp. Some patients walked two full days to seek care.

Here are the happy results of this camp: A total of 564 patients were examined in the three-day eye camp and 67 surgeries were performed, of which 54 were sight-restoring cataract surgeries (31 female & 23 male) and 13 (female 7 & 6 male) were other surgeries like pterigium, chalazion & entropion surgeries*. A total of eight bilateral blind patients underwent surgery.

Our deepest thanks to the team and to our wonderful Seva donors who made this possible. And thank you to Parami, Shravan and Kandel at Seva Nepal for sharing this heartwarming story with us.

To give the gift of sight, visit www.seva.ca.

Definitions:

What is pterigium?:  A pterygium is fleshy tissue that grows in a triangular shape over the cornea (the transparent part or front window of the eyeball). It may grow large enough to interfere with vision.

What is chalazion?: A chalazion  is a cyst in the eyelid that is caused by inflammation of a blocked meibomian gland, usually on the upper eyelid. Chalazions differ from styes in that they are more painful than styes, as well as bigger in size. A chalazion could take months to fully heal with treatment and could take years to heal without any.

What is entropion?: Entropion is a medical condition in which the eyelids fold inward. It is very uncomfortable, as the eyelashes rub against the cornea constantly. Entropion is usually caused by genetic factors and may be congenital. Trachoma infection may cause scarring of the inner eyelid, which may cause entropion. Treatment is a simple surgery in which excess skin of the outer lids is removed. Prognosis is excellent if surgery is performed before the cornea is damaged.

By Penny Lyons
Executive Director, Seva Canada

November 20^th

Thirty six elderly Tanzanians sit under the shade of a Poinciana tree in Ndatu village.  All are from the same village in the district of Arumeru, about an hour from Moshi.  They know each other well so the air is a filled with the sounds of laughter and conversation.

I have come to this village with a team from KCCO.  There are 4 of us:  Herieth Mganga, KCCO’s new gender and blindness coordinator, Fred the driver who doubles as the visual acuity tester in the field,  Dr. Amadou Bio from Benin,  who is training to be an ophthalmologist, and myself.

All 36 of these people have agreed to participate in a study (there will be 150 participants in total from 4 different villages) to determine the effect that correcting presbyopia (or age related far-sightedness) has in their daily life.  Do reading glasses make an elderly Tanzanian’s life easier?  Most are illiterate but if they can now pick the stones from the rice, thread a needle and take thorns from their fingers will this significantly improve their quality of life?

There is very little refractive error in Africa and most of these people have distance vision that someone 40 years their junior would envy.  The flip side of that great distance vision is that many of the 36 have difficulty seeing things that are close so “reading” glasses (even though most do not read) are provided to them free of charge.  While doing the vision testing, four cases of cataract were diagnosed and referred on to hospital for treatment and a few infections were treated.

Each person who received reading glasses will be visited in their homes in three months to determine what difference, if any, the reading glasses had on their daily life.

At this point you might be asking yourself if this study is important, or even relevant, to the elimination of preventable and treatable blindness.  It is because it illustrates the cornerstone of all of Seva and our partner’s work; together we create programs that are based on evidence.  Evidence tells us a problem exists, it tells us the extent of the problem and it tells us what should be done to correct that problem.

With evidence, we can spend our donor’s dollars effectively and get the maximum benefit – whether we are studying presbyopia, childhood blindness, the incidence of cataract in a population or the barriers people face when trying to access treatment.

By Penny Lyons, Executive Director, Seva Canada
November 16, 2009

Madagascar, where do I even start? Stunningly beautiful, heartbreakingly poor, rich in culture, language and traditions and complex in its politics.

I travelled here from Tanzania with Dr. Paul Courtright, co-director of the Kilimanjaro Centre for Community Ophthalmology (KCCO) based in Moshi, Tanzania. KCCO has been working with Madagascar eye care programs since 2007 – at first helping create national eye care programs and now also funding training, outreach programs and a pediatric program.

Our task here is to follow up and expand on the work that KCCO has done, as well as evaluate the programs that have been funded by Seva donors. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has funded outreach in the Vakinankaratra region, as has the May and Stanley Smith Charitable Trust.

Each of these two organizations have helped fund the creation and implementation of community outreach programs in this populous region in the highlands of Madagascar centered around the city of Antsirabe, just 3 hours drive south of the capital city of Antananarivo. In addition, Alcon Canada generously donated an enormous amount of ophthalmological supplies, including intraocular lenses.

Seva programs that I have visited previously have all been well established. National blindness plans were in place, outreach was active and well organized, a comprehensive training program was in place and all programs were working toward both financial sustainability and ensuring services were available to the most vulnerable – particularly children and women.

It has been both enlightening and rewarding to witness the birth of a new program here in Madagascar and to fully comprehend the partnerships at all levels of government, healthcare and community that have to be created in order for eye care programs to succeed. In fact, given the complexities, it is a wonder it happens at all. But here in Madagascar, as in our other programs, there are individuals, hospitals and local governments that have dedicated themselves to making it happen and are committed not only to creating eye care programs but are also committed to creating excellent ones.

Today I visited an outreach program in Mendoto, a small centre about 150km west of Antsirabe. When the team from Fitsaboana Hospital in Antsirabe arrived at about 8am, there were over 300 people in the courtyard of the local hospital. We assumed they were patients waiting to be seen at ALL the hospital departments, but as we started to set up we realized they were all there to have their eyes screened and treated.

The team quickly organized the room we were given. A visual acuity chart and registration desk was set up; there were 2 examination areas for the ophthalmologists; the counselors, who provide information to those requiring more care like cataract surgery or low-vision services, had a small table; and a makeshift pharmacy was created. Patients were divided into two lines, one for children and one for adults, and each ophthalmologist took one line. Periodically someone was sent to scout the lines to make sure those who required the most complex care or who were very elderly were brought to the front of the line.

It was hot, both outside and inside the makeshift clinic. No one complained and no one took a break. Bottles of water were brought to the team, but they barely stopped to take a drink. Everyone knew how many patients were waiting and how far they might have travelled to get there. They could drink later.

In the first two hours, 4 children were diagnosed with congenital or developmental cataract in both eyes and appointments for surgery were made.  Many more children were seen but who could not be helped – children blind because of damage to their corneas – many of whose sight could have been restored if they lived in a developed country. Children with birth defects or severe low vision were referred to the counselors so their families could learn where to find help. Twenty-four adults were scheduled for cataract surgery and, once again, there were many more who simply could not be helped.

The ophthalmologists were unbelievably kind and gentle with all who came and, even after very long waits in the brutal sun, not one patient complained. The last patient was seen at 6:30 pm. All were grateful to be treated and I was grateful to be there.

Our gratitude to the Canadian International Development Agency, the May and Stanley Smith Charitable Trust and Alcon Canada for their generous support in bringing eye care to the people of Madagascar.

Adults with poor vision are at increased risk of early death according to a recent study from the Westmead Millenium Institute in Sydney, Australia, published in the Archives of Ophthalmology.

Researchers found that in a group of adults between 49 and 74, those with noncorrectable vision problems were 35% more likely to die than people with unimpaired vision.

Michael J. Karpa and colleagues analyzed data from the Blue Mountains Eye Study, in which 3,654 Australians over the age of 49 were examined between 1992 and 1994, with follow-up exams at five and ten years. Patients were considered to have noncorrectable visual impairment if they presented with vision worse than 20/40 in the better eye after subjective refraction. The researchers compared these eye health data with Australian mortality records. They found that 13 years after the study started, 1,273 of the participants had died, and that those with vision problems were more likely to die.

Finding showed that difficulty walking, which is often a result of vision problems, is the most significant risk factor. According to the researchers, people who have difficulty walking may be less likely to visit a doctor regularly (for an exam or to get prescriptions for important medications filled). They also may have a poorer diet, be less likely to exercise, be socially isolated, and be less likely to seek urgent help. Previous studies found that people were also prone to other factors that can raise mortality risk, such as unintentional injury, depression, increased risk of falls, and cardiovascular disease.

If adults in the developed world risk early death from poor vision and blindness, in the developing world the risks are higher. Here at Seva we receive terrible stories and photos of blind adults and blind children who have suffered terrible accidents and endured harsh lives because of their vision impairment.

The good news is that for 80% of the world’s blind, there is a solution in sight — their vision loss is either treatable or preventable.

Visit www.seva.ca for more information.

Source: medpagetoday

It’s eye camp season again in Tibet. Each day hundreds of blind Tibetans are being screened by Seva for eye problems and scores of people blinded by cataracts are receiving sight-restoring surgery.

Seva Canada has been working for over 27 years to restore sight and prevent blindness in the developing world. We’ve been working in Tibet since 1995, where we are the dominant eye-care provider, doing two-thirds of all cataract surgeries.

Worldwide 45 million people are blind, but people don’t go blind by the millions. They go blind one personal tragedy at a time. Here is one story about someone who was blind and had her sight restored by Seva thanks to the generosity of Seva’s donors.

Last autumn in Chamdo, Tibet, a little 7-year-old boy led his blind mother by the hand to a Seva surgical eye camp. Dekyi is a 48-year-old single mother with 6 children depending on her.

Dekyi told Sonam from Seva’s Tibet office, “I never had a husband, but I have two children. Dorjee is the younger one and he brought me here. The older one, my daughter, is at home herding the animals. I became an orphan when I was just 5. My only surviving family member was my older brother and he died 3 years ago.”

She groaned, but continued with a trembling voice. “I lost my sight two years ago and since then I have been depending on Dorjee and my 12-year-old daughter for living. I hope that my sight will be restored from this operation. There is a huge amount of debt mounted from my brother’s illness and death that I need to paid off and I need to free Dorjee for schooling and to raise my brother’s four children. Their mother died five years ago and left all the kids for my brother to raise. His death left no choice for the kids than to depend on me.”

She continued. “I am Dekyi. You know my that name means ‘happiness’ in Tibetan, but I’ve never been happy once in my life. My life has been all about death, loneliness, debts and now blindness. Often, I think I must have been a bad person in my previous life and that my bad karma is causing all this pain.”

When called to the examination room, Dekyi quickly pulled herself together, stood up with the support of her stick and called for Dorjee who was outside playing with other children. All of the sudden, Dekyi looked pale and restless. She fumbled with her hair and pressed it down at the back and said, “This is it. The only chance I have got. What if my blindness is diagnosed as untreatable?”

Dorjee led her by the hand to the examination room. With Dorjee’s help, she placed herself on a chair in front of the slit lamp. A few minutes later, she was diagnosed with bilateral cataracts and scheduled for a surgery in the afternoon on the same day. Dorjee rushed to her and held her from her behind and buried his head into her coat and cried for a long time. He shed tears for the joy of a new hope and for all the pain borne all the years by her mother and himself. Dekyi thanked and prayed for the Buddha, drawing her palms together at her chest, and then spoke with a tearful face, “I am now feeling happy and happy for the first time in my life.” She wiped her tears with her right-hand sleeve and then followed Dorjee for lunch. Dekyi was operated in that afternoon.

The next day, Dekyi had her vision tested and it was 6/9. She and Dorjee came to thank the Seva staff and to say goodbye. She looked much more tidy on that day than she did when she arrived at the camp. Her black hair was neat, she was smiling and she walked without the aid of her stick.

Carefully taking off her new sunglasses, she expressed her deep appreciation to Seva and asked that a particular message be conveyed to Seva’s donors. “Please tell all the people in your organization. They are the ones who have helped me end my bad karma and bring a glimpse of light to my life!” Tears of happiness were rolling down her cheeks as she said it.

Please consider supporting Seva Canada’s sight programs by becoming a monthly donor or giving the gift of sight. Call 604-713-6622 or visit our website at www.seva.ca.

Thursday October 8th is World Sight Day and Seva Canada is planning a range of events to mark the occasion. This year’s theme for World Sight Day is gender and eye health.

Here are the facts:
1. Two-thirds of the world’s 45 million blind people are women & girls.
2. In many countries, men’s access to eye care is twice that of women.
3. Effective strategies can and do successfully address this inequity.

Seva is a global leader in understanding and addressing the barriers to eye care faced by girls and women.

This World Sight Day, Seva Canada will be holding Seva’s Eye Opener fundraising event at Vancouver’s Heritage Hall, with special guest Dr. Paul Courtright, co-director of the Kilimanjaro Centre for Community Ophthalmology (Seva’s partner in eastern Africa) and the world leader on the issue of gender and blindness.

Also, Seva will be launching a national on-line video contest “Her Sight Is Worth It” with great prizes. More about the contest and all our events soon at www.seva.ca.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at Benwell-Atkins (RRD) in Vancouver checking our new 2010 calendar on press. What fun to see the gorgeous photos come to life! Talk about “hot off the press” – the ink was still wet when I was checking the samples and marveling at the colours.

Calendars will be ready for sale from the Seva office by June 22nd. Our huge thanks to photographer Jon Kaplan for donating the images; to Gregory Green for his lovely design; and all the folks at Benwell-Atkins for their work on this job. It’s a beauty!

All proceeds from the sale of Seva Canada’s annual calendar go to restore sight and prevent blindness in the developing world. Call the office at 604-713-6622 to order yours!

Here’s the back cover:

In February, I wrote about a little girl in Madagascar with such severe and unusual myopia (nearsightedness) that there was no help available to her in her own country.

This morning we received these photos of 8-year-old Andoniaina (Ando for short) wearing her new glasses specially made for her in Canada.

Ando lives on a small island in the Mozambique Channel, off the southwest coast of Madagascar. To seek help, she and her father travelled one hour by speedboat to Tulear on the mainland, then drove 1,000 kilometres to the capital of Antananarivo to get her eyes examined. They were eventually referred to a hospital in Antsirabe, 170 km south of the capital for a second opinion. That’s where Dr. Henry Nkumbe, Seva’s partner in Madagascar, saw the little girl and asked Seva Canada for help.

Seva then called on longterm supporter and optometrist, Dr. Larry Louie, for his expertise. Together Dr. Louie and his colleague Wayne Trieu of I-Lab Optical in Edmonton created a very special pair of glasses. The glasses were then hand-delivered to Madagascar in time for Christmas by a representative of Sherritt International Corporation, a Canadian resources company.

“Something like this is not usually done and isn’t readily available. That’s what made it challenging,” said Dr. Louie. The typical eyeglass prescription is 2.00 to -3.00 points, but Ando has a prescription of -27.00 points for her right eye and -23.50 points for her left eye. This means that, without glasses, Ando can’t see much beyond the tip of her nose. Ando was essentially blind and would not have been able to see the faces of her family.

To keep the glasses from becoming too thick and thus brushing against her eyelashes, Dr. Louie and optician Wayne Trieu used special myodisc lenses with two bi-concave lenses on the front and back of each lens. Another challenge was getting a frame that was strong and durable and that would last a long time.

Andoniaina’s story and the way in which Canadians in three provinces came together to help her was featured in the Edmonton Journal and on Global news.

On behalf of Andoniaina, her family and our partner in Madagascar, Seva Canada would like to thank everyone who helped change this young girl’s life by giving her the gift of sight.

Seva Canada Board Member, Susan Erdmann, writes:

Prior to my leaving for Nepal in March, I gave my presentation on the Tibetan surgical eye camps to a class of 11 year olds (5th graders) at Mitchell Elementary in Richmond, BC. It was wonderful how well they responded to the visuals and story around eye camps and what it is like to lose sight from cataracts. The students asked lots of questions and were very engaged. When I left, I gave them each a Seva Gift of Sight catalogue and told them that everyone can make a difference and help restore sight.

I left quite pleased that they had responded so well. But what surprised and thrilled me far more was an email from the teacher, Miss Anita Lau, on my return from Nepal, telling me that the children had some money to give to Seva and asking me to return to the school to receive it. On Friday May 22nd, I returned to Mitchell Elementary and in front of the entire school, students from the class presented me with a cheque for $361.83.

How did they do it? They told me that, having decided to raise some money for Seva and under the teacher’s guidance, they brainstormed what they wanted to do and how they would do it. With their Seva brochures, they visited each classroom and told the other students about Seva and that what they were going to do raise some money to give people their sight back. They were going to hold a bake sale. They made posters to advertise, baked the goodies themselves and held the sale. They sold out and raised enough money to help restore the sight of 7 people.

But much more happened than being able to give Seva some money for the sight programs. These children learned many life lessons about what individuals can collectively achieve – how to work as a group for a common and worthwhile cause, the payoff of working towards a goal through personal effort, the satisfaction of giving to a wonderful cause and helping others in need, and the sheer joy of giving. They were so proud of themselves – as they should be.

The teacher, Miss Lau empowered and guided these young students, allowing them to discover for themselves what might be possible. I applaud Miss Lau and her students for a job well done. These students will have this experience for the rest of their lives, growing up with an expanded view of the world and how they can effect positive change in it.

A huge thank you from Seva!