ORBIS is a  nonprofit, global development organization whose mission is to eliminate avoidable blindness in developing countries. How do we do this? By strengthening the capacity of our local eye health partners to prevent and treat avoidable blindness.

Tagesech Teshome, an eye care teacher in Ethiopia, gives an eye exam.

Through capacity building, our partners gain self-sufficiency in providing quality eye care, and residents enjoy quality treatment that is affordable, accessible and sustainable.

Capacity building encompasses:

• Clinical training
• Technical assistance 
• Institutional development
• Community education
• Behavioral change
• Health care reform 

Partnerships essential to program success

As part of ORBIS’s broad-based capacity building program, our organization works with carefully selected local partners on projects typically lasting at least three years. ORBIS has approximately 100 active partners. These include hospitals, health centers, universities and training centers, local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), eye banks and government health departments.

ORBIS volunteer faculty correct- ed three-year-old Thi Phang  Ngo's strabismus on board the Flying Eye Hospital. Prior to this demonstration, eye doctors from the Da Nang Eye Hospital in Vietnam had little hands-on training in this type of surgery.

ORBIS long-term capacity building projects are taking place in Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, India, Vietnam, Peru and Jamaica. Additional projects are underway in many other countries around the globe. All projects are geared toward making a lasting impact and allowing activities to continue long after ORBIS assistance has ended.

Donors provide time, energy and expertise, funding and gifts in kind

To provide such a vast array of capacity building programs over an ever-increasing terrain, ORBIS relies on an active pool of roughly 500 volunteer faculty members to provide clinical and technical expertise at local hospitals as well as onboard its Flying Eye Hospital — a one-of-a-kind ophthalmic surgical and training center located within a DC-10 aircraft. ORBIS uses volunteer pilots from FedEx and United Airlines to transport the Flying Eye Hospital from one destination to the next.

As a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, ORBIS relies on financial and gift-in-kind donations from individuals, corporations and foundations to help fund its urgently needed sight-saving programs.