Why You Should Help

• 80% of blindness is curable or preventable
• 36 million people worldwide are needlessly blind
• Those who are blind in Africa have a 4X higher mortality rate
• 60-80% of children who become blind die within 1-2 years
• Unite For Sight not only restores vision, but also empowers patients and their families.
• Blindness in the developing world has a significant effect on families, employment, income, and on the education of children within the family.
• Social stigma related to blind patients is commonplace in many communities in the developing world.
• Those who are blind are oftentimes considered to be a burden to the family because they are not able to contribute to a family's income.
• Instead of attending school, children within a family are frequently assigned to the role of the caregiver of blind adults.

Eye Care Is An Emergency Issue

Ghanaian Ophthalmologist Dr. Seth Wanye explains:

When we talk about healthcare needs in the government sector, it is all about killer diseases. The government's attention is on these diseases that actually cause immediate death. It is assumed that eye diseases do not kill, resulting in resources being channeled to other areas of healthcare. However, I have a different opinion. If you have someone who is blind, then someone else will have to forgo his or her activities in order to take care of this person. Oftentimes, you have a child who is supposed to go to school, but he is instead guiding a blind man around the house and directing him wherever he wants to go. This child could have gone to school, study, and become somebody in the future to help the family.

We often see very young people who are blind, many times younger than the age of 40. They become blind during their productive years; they could have been working and helping to contribute towards building wealth in the country. Instead, the blindness results in a financial loss to the nation because these people are not able to contribute to building the nation. We have therefore been trying to advocate to policy makers so that they understand that even though eye diseases do not kill, they do result in financial losses to the nation. We must see this as an emergency issue. I see eye care as a very important area, and I love to do what I am doing now, to try to help people who I think would benefit from the services that we provide.