Sightsavers
Organizational member
Chief Executive Officer: Dr. Caroline Harper
Website: https://www.sightsavers.org
General email: info@sightsavers.org
General phone: +44 (0)1444 446 600
Primary contact
Syeda Munazza Gillani, Director - Pakistan and Middle East
mgillani@sightsavers.org
Secondary contact
Kenneth Moon, Chief Operating Officer
kmoon@sightsavers.org
Type: Charity
Focus Region/Countries: Global, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, India, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, The Gambia, Togo, Uganda, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Sector: Health
OVERVIEW
When Sightsavers was founded in 1950, the goal was to transform the lives of visually impaired people in Africa, through education and livelihoods. Since then, our focus has expanded and our vision is of a world where no one is blind from avoidable causes, and where people with disabilities can participate equally in society. Our strategic approach to inclusion is twin track: We design interventions that are targeted towards the empowerment of people with disabilities - economic empowerment, education, and political participation - and we also mainstream disability into wider programs, and advocate for change in national and global policies. Our approaches are developed through testing and learning from what works.
We treat eye conditions such as cataracts and tackle debilitating diseases, many of which cause sight loss. To do this, we work with governments and local, national, and international partners to carry out eye operations and distribute treatments where they’re needed.
We also advocate for the rights of women, girls and people with disabilities, and help to improve local health services so they are sustainable.
We have more than 70 years of experience, and we’re proud to be a leader in our field. Our programs consistently achieve high performance ratings from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
Developing effective partnerships is one of Sightsavers’ strategic objectives and is embedded in our strategy. Our partnerships are increasingly diverse, and we work with an extensive network of more than 300 organizations, including private sector, academia, and civil society. Sightsavers believes in working in partnership with peers and individuals at individual, regional, and national levels, and selects partners based on shared goals, mutual accountability, respect, and integrity. Working in this way brings us closer to achieving global goals.
Sightsavers has a presence in more than 30 countries worldwide, focusing on Africa and Asia.
We work closely with communities and recruit local volunteers to help us carry out our work. We also partner with regional, national and international organisations, governments and non-governmental organizations.
MISSION
We are an international organization working with partners in low- and middle-income countries to eliminate avoidable blindness and promote equal opportunities for people with disabilities.
VISION
Sightsavers' vision is of a world where no one is blind from avoidable causes, and where everyone can participate equally in society
PROGRAMS
Sightsavers’ programs began in Africa in the 1950s, and we now work in more than 30 countries across Africa and Asia. Key Programs Include:
- EYE HEALTH: Sightsavers aims to address this by providing eye surgery and training eye care workers to provide vital treatment. Since our work began, we’ve helped to carry out more than 11 million sight-saving eye operations.
Through community volunteers, we distribute medication to protect people from blinding diseases that can cause pain, stigma, and lifelong impairment. We also work to ensure health services are accessible to people with disabilities, women and girls, and other marginalized groups.
Over the course of the year, Sightsavers conducted 8.8 million eye examinations – a 36% increase from 2021. We have provided health solutions to more than 780,000 people. We exceeded our treatment delivery targets for neglected tropical diseases, distributing more than 135 million treatments and reaching an estimated 87 million people. We witnessed an incredible achievement in Malawi: the elimination of trachoma. Sightsavers and its partners supported the government of Malawi to achieve this goal which was validated by the World Health Organization.
- EDUCATION: We believe good-quality education should be available to all children, irrespective of gender, disability, learning requirements, socio-economic background, geographical location, ethnicity and any other distinguishing characteristics. In each of the countries where we work, we aim to:
• Improve education systems at national, district and school levels to promote and provide inclusive education
• Ensure community members, including people with disabilities, are actively involved in inclusive education programs
• Promote innovative teaching and learning approaches that are contextually appropriate and focused on the students themselves
• Ensure education plans and policies are disability inclusive and implemented effectively.
Who we work with: Ministries of education, other ministries, organizations of people with disabilities (OPDs), alliances and coalitions, universities and community groups.
- SOCIAL INCLUSION: Our social inclusion strategy is aligned to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We focus on economic empowerment, political participation, gender and advocacy, following three related paths:
• Human rights policies and laws must be implemented by national governments. This requires legislative and governmental accountability, effective legal mechanisms and citizen engagement
• People with disabilities must have equal opportunities. This means being able to access services such as education, health and legal protection
• Stigma and discrimination must be addressed. This is often deep-rooted, and encouraging people to accept diversity is crucial to ensure lasting social change
Who we work with: OPDs, the International Disability Alliance (IDA) and several of its members, and NGOs.
- NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES (NTDs): Our overriding goal is to eliminate NTDs while ensuring our NTD work helps to improve local health systems and encourages progress towards universal health coverage, in line with the new WHO road map on NTDs. In particular, we will:
• Address gaps and weaknesses in health systems to enable equitable patient care and effective surveillance
• Encourage opportunities for evidence-based decision-making by supporting data standardization and data ownership
• Support universal health coverage by ensuring equitable access to NTD and inclusion services
Who we work with: Much of our NTD work is undertaken in consortia, funded by donor foundations and governments. We cooperate fully with other large NTD programs and their donors to avoid duplication, share learning and ensure we can all consistently support the governments of endemic countries, who are the ultimate owners of these programs.
- ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES: The overall goal of the program is that participating young people with (and without) disabilities enter the labor market and remain in decent employment (waged or self-employment) in countries where we work, especially in West Africa and Asia. We work across labor market systems to enable employers to become disability confident and people with disabilities to realize their employment aspirations. Informed by rigorous labor market assessments, we are partnering with companies like Coca Cola Beverages Africa and East Africa Breweries Limited to create opportunities along their value chains. We have a particular focus on women’s economic empowerment, recognizing women with disabilities face double disadvantages and barriers to participating in – and benefitting from - local, national and global economies.
Our vision of a world where people with disabilities can participate equally in society aligns with Futuremakers’ Lifting Participation ambition of “achieving economic inclusion for underserved communities”. Our portfolio of economic empowerment programs called "Futuremakers" ensures that people with disabilities (particularly women) are empowered to find sustainable employment and/or supported to build thriving micro-businesses.
The labor market system is further strengthened to scale the results of the program with its own resources.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
