Unable to see the blackboard, 14-year-old Anika was struggling to keep up in school. She told her parents and her teacher about her problem, but there was nothing to be done. The nearest eye hospital was a great distance away from the family’s home in rural Bangladesh, and they simply couldn’t afford to make the journey.
It’s a common story in low-resource countries like Bangladesh and India. The simple remedies that we often take for granted—a pair of eyeglasses, an antibiotic, some eye drops—are inaccessible, especially in rural communities, due to cost and distance. So instead people do their best to carry on without their eyesight, with heartbreaking consequences for themselves, their families, and their entire communities
Her parents heard about a new service in their community, the Grameen Singra Vision Center, where people could go to get basic eye care. They took Anika there, and her eyes were examined by a qualified ophthalmic technician.
The technician consulted via the internet with an ophthalmologist at the nearest hospital—the one that Anika’s family couldn’t afford to visit—and Anika was diagnosed with refractive error. She received an eyeglass prescription and a pair of spectacles, and now she can clearly see the blackboard at school.
While Anika's story has a happy ending. There are many more children just like Anika with undiagnosed refractive errors living in darkness needlessly and falling behind at school due to lack of access to quality eye care.
Will you join us and continue to ensure we can continue to make eye care available everywhere - regardless of where they live? Together, we can do it.