Water is flowing once again at this borehole in Chisamba Village, Zambia. For months, the water point – originally drilled by another organization – was out of service. But thanks to the efforts of William, a 28-year-old Area Pump Minder, it's working again.
Area Pump Minders are volunteers who are trained to repair boreholes in their communities. In 2022, we collaborated with the local government to fund William’s training in borehole maintenance. Today, we’re proud to employ many of the Area Pump Minders we’ve previously trained to assess the dysfunctional water points, source materials and carry out the repairs. After several weeks of work on the Chisamba borehole, William had the hand pump working and water flowing freely again.
The effects of a broken hand pump can be devastating to the local community. In Chisamba, teenaged girls had to walk long distances to fetch water for their families, missing school and facing risks of gender-based violence along the way. Without clean water, the community was vulnerable to infectious diseases like cholera and trachoma – an eye infection that can cause blindness if left untreated.
For one local grandmother, seeing the water flow has brought a renewed sense of hope for her grandchildren, who had been walking up to three kilometres each day to fetch water.
The work we do goes far beyond just creating access to safe, clean water. The borehole becomes a focal point for community interaction and allows people raise extra income by growing vegetables and selling the produce – strengthening both livelihoods and resilience within the community.
Story written with files from Program Manager Tony Kazembe.
Learn more about the ripple effects of clean water by watching our video about boreholes in Zambia's Sinazongwe District.
Between textbooks, whiteboards and videos in class, most of the information that’s presented to kids at school is visual. So what does that mean for a child who can’t see clearly?
In countries where eye health care is difficult to access, a simple eye condition like myopia (nearsightedness) can cause a student to fall behind and even drop out of school, which in turn could affect the child’s income for the rest of his or her life.
Ensuring that Quality Education is available to all children is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda. We’re working towards this goal by ensuring that more children get the eye health care they need to thrive at school and take charge of their education.
According to a survey by the World Bank, children with visual impairments in sub-Saharan Africa are five percentage points less likely to ever be enrolled in school or to complete primary school. They are six percentage points less likely to be literate.1
The links between academic performance and visual impairment can be harder to draw given the complexity of the issue, but one survey from francophone countries in Africa found that primary school students – who self-reported difficulties with their vision – performed worse on standardized tests in math and reading in all but one of the 10 participating countries.2 Similarly, a Stanford study of 20,000 fourth and fifth graders in rural China found that eyeglasses boosted the standardized test scores by 18 per cent over six months.3
Even studies from higher income countries, where children have better access to eye health care, show that students with poor vision tend to read more slowly than their peers and are more likely to report that they don’t like reading.4 Visual fatigue is a likely culprit for both, and the resulting headaches and tiredness that these kids experience are also thought to play a role in behavioral issues at school.
Roughly 22.16 million children ages 14 and under have Moderate to Severe Vision Impairment (MSVI) and 44.6 million have mild vision impairment, according to a panel of global health professionals called the Vision Loss Expert Group.5
Only 20-50 per cent of the children who need prescription eyeglasses worldwide actually own a pair.6 Often, this is due to a lack of access to eye health care. In rural, remote or underserved communities, especially in low- and middle-income countries, many kids don’t get regular eye exams or have access to prescription eyeglasses and other treatment. This could be due to financial constraints, lack of education about the importance of eye health, or simply because there aren’t any optometry clinics nearby.
Across lower-income communities, schools may also lack electricity or lighting, making it even more difficult for a student with vision impairment to read information written on a blackboard. Lack of adequate lighting at home can also cause difficulties in completing homework. For a secondary student who is already falling behind in class, not being able to finish homework in a timely manner could end their school career, and cause them to drop out early.
Isaac Baffoe, who manages our school eye health programs in Ghana, says one student’s story really stuck with him. The girl reported that her eyesight started to fade when she was about 12 years old, and by age 15 she had severe vision impairment. For years, she relied on a classmate to read the blackboard out loud to her during class. Isaac often wonders what would have happened to her if her friend hadn’t been so helpful, or even more importantly, if our school eye health program hadn’t reached her school and she hadn’t gotten prescription eyeglasses.
Our field staff hear a lot about the difficulties that students face before they get eyeglasses. One student in Ethiopia reported that she and her friend were frequently scolded when the friend read the blackboard notes aloud to her. Others reported that their grades dropped sharply, or that they lost interest in their studies. Many children say that they asked their parents to take them to the eye doctor, but due to tight finances or difficulty in reaching a clinic, they weren’t able to get the eye care they needed.
The good news is that, with your ongoing support, we are changing all of this – one school and one child at a time.
Part of our goal at Operation Eyesight is to reach every single member of a community with eye health care, ensuring that nobody gets left behind. Increasingly, we’re screening school-aged children for eye issues right in the classroom.
In 2023 alone, our school eye health programs helped us screen more than 240,000 students in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nepal and Zambia.
In Kenya, we’ve partnered with the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) Child Blindness Program and Peek Vision to deliver an innovative program where teachers are trained to do the initial eye health screenings using a simple smartphone app. This allows us to screen more students overall, while still providing referrals to those children identified with eye problems to get a complete eye exam with a healthcare professional.
In Ghana, we train community health nurses to help deliver our school eye health programs, also in partnership with USAID and with funding from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Latter-day Saints Charities. In addition to conducting school eye health screenings, the nurses provide the students with eye health education sessions, where they learn how to prevent eye injuries and infections and learn about various conditions, like refractive errors (the need for eyeglasses). By making sure children have basic eye health information and know where to go for subsidized eye care, whole families are made aware of the services that are available to them.
Isaac, who has been on hand during several of these school screening events, says the children are always very eager to get involved. “The children show lots of interest. They want to participate,” he explains. “During all the screenings we’ve attended to audit, the children are very cooperative, they really want to know what is going on.”
He adds that it’s not just the students who are happy with getting a pair of eyeglasses.
“It’s not only a relief to the children, but also to the teachers,” he says, “because it also made their work difficult to spend extra time with these children who were struggling with their studies prior to receiving eyeglasses.”
In November 2020, the borehole in the Zambian village of Kangwa broke down. The COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing, and the need for clean water was more urgent than ever. For Natasha, a teenager who was in high school at the time, the breakdown had devastating consequences. As the family member tasked with fetching water, Natasha now had to walk several kilometres each day to complete the chore, meaning she could no longer attend school. She wasn’t alone – other teenage girls in her community were in the same situation.
When our team in Zambia found out about the broken borehole, they sprang into action and quickly got it fixed. They were well equipped to do so, because we have been working with communities to repair and drill boreholes for many years to curb the spread of trachoma.
Trachoma is a bacterial eye infection that’s common in areas with water shortages and crowded living conditions. The bacteria spreads easily through contact with eye discharge from infected people on hands and clothing, and also through direct transmission by flies. If left untreated, it can cause severe pain, vision loss and even blindness. In fact, it is the leading infectious cause of blindness worldwide.
When we work with communities in areas of Zambia, Ethiopia and Kenya where trachoma is endemic, we ensure that water and sanitation issues are part of our intervention. In communities like Kangwa, this means training local volunteer teams to help maintain and repair broken boreholes, and training community WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) teams to educate their neighbours about preventing trachoma transmission in the home.
In order to ensure that girls have equal access to quality education, clean water and sanitation facilities must be part of the solution. (Watch this video to learn more about the ripple effects of clean water.)
Myopia (nearsightedness) rates are on the rise all over the world. In 2020, the global prevalence was 30 per cent. It’s estimated to rise to 50 per cent by 2050.7
In China, where the rise in myopia in children is being described as an epidemic, the government has rolled out a nation-wide strategy to curb the growth, which includes school-based eye screenings, public health education campaigns, a reduction in homework and an increase in time spent outdoors.8
As suggested by China’s strategies, many of the factors contributing to the rise of myopia are likely due to modern lifestyles: more time spent indoors, doing near-work like homework, and more time spent parked in front of digital devices.
But there may be more at play in the phenomenon, including environmental risks like increasing urbanization and changing diets. As low- to middle-income countries become more urbanized and educational pressures mount, children everywhere are at increased risk of developing the refractive error. In parts of Africa and Asia where families already face difficulties accessing eye health care, the gap between eye health services and those in need of treatment will continue to grow.
As part of our 2024-2028 Global Strategy, we are committed to providing eye health care and clean water to more children so that they can take full advantage of any educational opportunities they are presented with. This means integrating WASH projects with school eye health projects and rolling out more school eye health programs across our countries of work.
We have already seen much success with our school eye health programs in countries like Kenya and Ghana, where we’re working with the local ministries of health and education. Now, it’s time to scale our efforts to more schools, more districts and more countries. With your ongoing support, we can expand our reach and improve the quality of life for more kids around the world.
Donate today and help us restore sight and prevent blindness for more children. The Gift of Sight is the gift of education and the gift of opportunity. Thank you for your support!
At first, a trachoma infection looks a bit like a case of pink eye: red, irritated eyes, maybe some swelling and discharge1. But for many people in the world, a trachoma infection is a serious concern. If left untreated, it can lead to severe pain, vision loss and even blindness. The bacteria that cause trachoma spread through direct personal contact, through shared towels and clothing, and through flies that have been in contact with an infected person. And there’s a simple solution for reducing its spread…
Clean water.
When communities have access to abundant clean water, they can wash their hands and faces regularly, do laundry more often, and prevent the otherwise relentless transmission of the disease. That’s why we are working hard with communities and partner organizations to make sure that the people in our project areas have access to a local, sustainable clean water source.
There’s been a lot of good news in the eradication of trachoma in recent years. In 2023 alone, Benin, Iraq and Mali each received certification from the World Health Organization (WHO) for eliminating trachoma as a public health problem. Also, the number of people at risk of getting the infection fell from 125 million in 2022 to 115.7 million in 2023, a significant reduction.2
But the hard work must go on.
Ethiopia has some of the highest rates of trachoma worldwide, with the prevalence in the Amhara Region estimated to be nearly 63 per cent. In that country, trachoma is the second leading cause of blindness overall.3
Trachoma continues to infect people in 42 countries and has caused blindness or visual impairment in roughly 1.9 million people. It remains the leading infectious cause of blindness worldwide. And the effect on the workforce in these countries is huge. According to a recent paper by the WHO, the loss of productivity due to trachoma costs somewhere between US $3-8 billion each year.4
To people like Stephen, in Narok County, Kenya, having trachoma meant not being able to support his family. The father of four, who works as a motorcycle courier, struggled with the infection for years. He tried eye drops, eyeglasses and several surgeries before the trichiasis in his right eye, caused by repeat trachoma infections, was fully resolved.
Since undergoing a successful final surgery at one of our partner hospitals, the young man now acts as an eye health ambassador in his community, making sure people know what the infection is, the role of hygiene in stopping its spread, and how to get it treated.
Years of repeat infection from trachoma causes scarring to the eyelid. This scarring can be so severe that the eyelid turns inward, causing the eyelashes to rub against the eyeball. This leads to severe pain, light intolerance and scarring of the cornea.
If left untreated, the damage to the cornea can cause vision impairment, usually between the ages of 30 to 40 years5, although it can happen in children as well. Trachoma causes 1.4 per cent of blindness globally.6
Women become blind from trachoma four times as often as men. This is likely due to frequent infections they get while caring for small children, who often pass trachoma on to others.
At Operation Eyesight, we follow the WHO’s SAFE strategy for controlling and preventing trachoma. SAFE stands for:
S: Surgery to treat trichiasis (the painful late stage of the disease)
A: Antibiotics to eliminate infection
F: Face washing and hygiene education
E: Environmental improvement including wells and latrines
The foundation for the strategy is environmental improvement, namely – providing access to clean water. Over the decades, we’ve worked with communities to rehabilitate and drill hundreds of boreholes. In recent years, most of our work with water has been concentrated in Zambia and Kenya, but we are also getting involved in more water projects in Ethiopia as we expand our programs there.
Along with drilling and rehabilitation, we work with local governments to make sure people can fix the boreholes when they break down. In Zambia, that means financing the training of volunteers called Area Pump Minders (APMs) to do routine maintenance and repair of boreholes. The program helps ensure that there is a system for repair work, with locally-available toolkits and spare parts, and that monitoring of the water supply is happening at the village level. In addition to helping their communities, some of the APMs go on to find paid work repairing privately-owned boreholes. Over the last two years, we’ve seen several women join the traditionally all-male teams, and we hope to recruit more in future.
The community involvement doesn’t stop there. We also work with volunteers to form WASH committees who help educate other people, especially children, in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. In Ethiopia, we are working with partners to train teachers in WASH so they can pass on their knowledge to thousands of students. Our work in Ethiopia has also involved fixing up latrines and providing menstrual supplies, both of which can help keep teenaged girls in school longer.
Antibiotics also go a long way to preventing and treating existing cases of trachoma. We work with local governments and partner organizations to provide these antibiotics to areas with high prevalence of trachoma. Earlier this year, we collaborated with partners in a Mass Drug Administration project in Kenya’s Narok County. Despite wet road conditions that made it challenging for crews to access all the communities, the project managed to administer the antibiotic azithromycin to more than 215,000 people!
Throughout the process, our trained community health volunteers work tirelessly to provide education on the importance of facial cleanliness and environmental improvements in stopping the spread of trachoma.
Finally, with help from our generous donors, our partner hospitals can offer surgeries free of charge to people with advanced stages of trichiasis to alleviate the pain and prevent further loss of sight.
We’re involved in clean water projects as a means of preventing trachoma, but the effects of providing clean water to communities are countless. The installation and maintenance of boreholes prevents dozens of waterborne diseases that sicken and threaten the lives of many, and that keep whole communities trapped in the cycle of poverty. Sustainable boreholes help people grow gardens full of fresh vegetables, allow them to raise livestock and improve the quality of life for everyone around them.
The effects of access to clean water are especially beneficial to women and girls. Here’s why:
Education and economic opportunities: In many communities, women and girls are responsible for fetching water, a task that can be extremely time consuming and physically demanding. This can prevent girls from attending school and women from pursuing income-generating activities. When clean water is locally available, girls are more likely to complete their schooling, and women have more time for activities that empower them economically.
Reduced gender-based violence: Providing access to clean water within communities reduces the need for women and girls to travel long distances for water, decreasing their vulnerability to the violence and harassment that they risk when collecting water.
Hygiene and menstrual health: Clean water is essential for maintaining proper hygiene, including menstrual sanitation. When women have access to clean water and sanitation facilities, it positively affects their overall health and dignity.
Community development: Women are often key contributors to the well-being of their communities. When they have access to clean water, they can actively take part in and lead initiatives that enhance the overall living conditions in their communities.
In 2023, we partnered on two new boreholes at schools in Ethiopia’s Amhara Region. In Zambia, we repaired 25 boreholes in the Mkushi District, trained 20 new Area Pump Minders and set up more WASH committees.
You can help us continue our water projects in 2024 by making a donation today. Thank you for your support!
Taking a closer look at the connections between avoidable vision loss and gender inequalities
The oldest of five children, Thandiwe in Zambia has always looked after her younger siblings. When the village borehole broke down, she had to fetch water from the river, and her family couldn’t wash as often. Thandiwe noticed some of her siblings had itchy, red eyes. Soon, she developed the same eye condition. Her left eye swelled and her eyelid turned inward, causing unbearable pain as her eyelashes scratched her cornea. With no money or access to a doctor, her eye became worse and worse until she lost vision in it entirely.
Priya in Nepal can’t remember when she first started having trouble seeing, but her vision kept deteriorating until one day she fell and injured herself while climbing the steep trail leading from the village to her house. Figuring that blindness was an inevitable part of old age, she stayed at home, unable to visit friends and grandchildren. Eventually she couldn’t even reach the outhouse without assistance. She felt like a burden to her family.
Mary, in Kenya, loved school from her very first day in the classroom and dreamed of becoming a teacher someday. After she turned 13, she started having trouble reading the chalk board. She had to copy notes from her friends and couldn’t do her homework in the dim light at her house. Her grades began to slip. She asked her parents to take her to an eye doctor, but money was too tight because they were saving to send her brother to college. By age 15, Mary quit school and decided to get married, her hopes of teaching now crushed.
None of these characters are real, but they represent the millions of women and girls around the world who are living with avoidable vision loss and blindness. We hear stories like these every day.
The prevalence of vision loss is higher among women and girls than it is for men and boys; 55 per cent of people experiencing vision loss are female. And while there are some biological factors at play, the reasons for these discrepancies are largely social.
Why women and girls experience more vision impairment
Women live on average longer than men, and many conditions that rob people of their sight are associated with old age. This includes cataract, presbyopia, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration. According to estimates, two-thirds of cataract blindness globally occurs in women.
Traditional gender roles are another factor, especially in some regions.
Women and girls are two to four times more likely than men and boys to get trachoma – the leading infectious cause of blindness worldwide. Trachoma is caused by bacteria that spreads through contact on hands and clothing. Small children are especially susceptible, and in turn, they often pass it on to their caretakers. Women and girls may also get infected from household cleaning and doing laundry.
Obstacles to eye health care access
The barriers to health care for women and girls vary widely from region to region, but there are trends that we can observe across the countries where we work. These include:
Addressing these diverse challenges is crucial for breaking down the barriers that prevent women and girls from accessing essential eye health care services.
Working toward gender equality
Our approach, called the “Hospital-Based Community Eye Health Program Model,” is designed to address inequalities to accessing eye health care, starting at the village level.
Most of the community health workers trained by Operation Eyesight’s partner hospitals are women, which gives them the opportunity to become trusted leaders in their communities and helps them contribute to family finances. They also bring eye health screenings to people’s doorsteps, meaning that women and girls don’t need to travel to get primary eye care and referrals.
Additionally, we work with our partner hospitals to establish vision centres closer to the communities where we work, making it easier for everyone to access diagnosis and treatment. Our partner hospitals also provide safe transportation for patients – usually by bus – to the hospital so that they can get their surgeries without worrying about how they’ll get there.
Finally, by providing surgeries, eyeglasses and other treatments free of charge – or at a highly subsidized rate – we can decrease some of the financial barriers women and girls face. We strive to provide quality eye care services to everyone – regardless of gender, age, ability to pay or other personal circumstances.
Clean water for gender equality
In a village in Zambia’s Mkushi District, a group of men and women stand over a water borehole, tools scattered at their feet. Two of the women turn a pipe with wrenches, their faces furrowed in concentration.
These men and women are Area Pump Minders in training – volunteers who fix and maintain water pumps in their communities. The pump minders are just one of our strategies for keeping communities supplied with a reliable source of clean water. As well as rehabilitating boreholes, we also work with communities to drill new ones, and provide training in WASH – which stands for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene.
While traditionally the pump minder volunteers were all men, we’re seeing more women join the teams. Between 2022 and 2023, we trained half a dozen women in borehole maintenance and repair in Zambia, placing the skills to keep the water flowing in the hands of those who need it most.
Clean water means that families can wash hands, faces and clothing regularly, which prevents the spread of trachoma – lessening the chance of vision loss and blindness, particularly among women. And there are countless other ripple effects for women and girls when they have access to clean water. It helps with the maintenance of menstrual hygiene, impacting health, dignity and overall quality of life. And, as women and girls are usually tasked with hauling water for their families, having a nearby borehole can help keep girls in school and give women more time to pursue economic activities to support their families.
Dismantling gender-related eye health myths in the foothills of the Himalayas
In the villages of the Udhampur block in northern India, vision problems are often seen as a sign of bad luck. A girl wearing glasses might be told she’ll never have a good marriage, and a baby’s bad eyesight might be blamed on past life sins. A girl with a squint could be seen as a curse for the whole family.
Those are some of the beliefs a recent pilot project took aim at.
Created in partnership with NorQuest College and the Rotary Eye & ENT Hospital, the project provided services through a “Mobile Vision Centre” – a four-wheel-drive van staffed with an eye health team comprised mostly of women. The van roamed the area’s rugged roads, bringing primary eye care and education to people’s doorsteps.
More than 27,000 people received training pertaining to eye health myths during the project duration. A before-and-after survey that checked people’s attitudes and beliefs regarding eye health for girls and women showed dramatic differences after the intervention. With that success in mind, our teams are looking to implement strategies from the project throughout our programs.
Read our new Global Strategy to find out how we plan to continue providing essential eye health care to women and girls and other underserved groups. Donate today to help us bring quality eye health care to more women and girls.
Every parent wants their child to be safe, happy and healthy at school – Abichikili Secondary School is no exception.
It’s one of five schools across Ethiopia’s state of Amhara where the attendance rate for girls decreases each year due to inaccessibility of clean water and bathroom facilities.
“Students had to walk for more than 15 minutes to get water from surrounding households. Many would not return to classes after that,” says the school’s principal, Yingesu Meshobiaw. “In the past, when girls felt that their period was setting in, they used to jump over fences and go home for lack of facilities.”
In 2022, in partnership with Partners in Education Ethiopia and the Peter Gilgan Foundation, we launched a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program at Abichikili and four other primary and secondary schools in the state, bringing locally-accessible water to more than 9,000 students.
The project has also helped improve school attendance, particularly among girls, who make up more than half of the student population. Before the project, upwards of 10 students were absent from class for a full week each month, often falling behind in class.
“Water access is vital for everyone. Water sources on school grounds allow for community gardens, which promote a different kind of learning and responsibility of nutrition – for students and adults alike,” Yingesu adds.
Local access to fresh water allows people to wash their hands, faces and clothing, prevention transmission of diseases, including blinding trachoma, which is a key cause of vision loss and blindness across sub-Saharan Africa.
Our teams took a variety of approaches to bring water to the schools, including drilling boreholes to access groundwater, digging trenches and installing water supply lines, and setting up storage tanks, faucets and appropriate drainage.
Faculty and community members received training to maintain their water infrastructure and test water quality. Twenty-one female teachers also received menstrual hygiene training including how to create reusable sanitary pads using local materials.
“Having a water supply line has changed our school for the better,” Yingesu says. “Girls started using the facility the day it opened, and attendance rates have increased tremendously.”
For the community of Lukanda B in central Zambia, the rehabilitation of the local water borehole has brought new life to the village.
It is one of 38 boreholes in Kapiri Mposhi District that Operation Eyesight repaired in 2022, thanks to a team of pump minders we have trained in the area. Locally available, safe water has made a difference in the lives of parents like Mutinta.
“When the borehole broke down in 2005, I was only able to wash my children’s clothes once or twice a month,” says Mutinta. “Now I’m able to wash clothes almost every day, because there is clean and safe water nearby.”
Before the borehole was fixed, Mutinta says her 15-year-old daughter, Memory, would frequently miss or be late for school because she had to walk long distances to fetch water for the family, a task that traditionally falls to girls. When Memory did attend school, she was often tired and her schoolwork suffered.
“I’m happy that my daughter will now be able to attend school regularly,” Mutinta adds.
Chali Chisala Selisho, our country director for Zambia, says that clean water nearby will play a key role in preventing the spread of trachoma, a bacterial eye infection that leads to irreversible blindness, as well as other diseases.
“Proper hand and face hygiene and sanitation are the best lines of defence against not only trachoma but other diseases like cholera, malaria, dysentery and diarrhea, which are on the rise in the area,” Chali adds.
Thanks to the generosity of our donors and the hard work of pump minders, Lukanda B’s future is bright!
Check out our new video from Zambia and learn more about how access to fresh water and sanitation is transforming the lives of individuals and entire communities.
When you give the Gift of Sight, not only are you helping to restore sight for individuals, but you’re also helping to prevent blindness for entire communities. Communities like Chitope in central Zambia.
The Chitope water point is one of 20 defunct boreholes that Operation Eyesight-trained teams are rehabilitating across the district, thanks to a team of 20 pump minders we have trained to repair and upgrade dysfunctional boreholes.
For the 350 households in the area, this work could not come soon enough. Chitope has been without a local, clean water source for the past four years. This means women and girls have had to travel long distances to rivers and shallow wells, where water is often not safe to drink.
“Lack of fresh water in this community has in the past prevented the expansion of local health and education facilities. This means women and children have been receiving health services in a thatched hut, and many children are learning under the shade of a tree,” says Chali Chisala Selisho, our Country Director for Zambia.
Chali says many families in Chitiope also depend on raising cattle and goats for their livelihood, which leaves them susceptible to diseases like blinding trachoma, spread by flies. Local access to fresh water will allow residents to wash their hands and face with clean water, helping make fight the spread of trachoma.
“This newly-fixed borehole will help transform this community, thanks to our donors and our community partners.”
Give the Gift of Sight this year to help transform the lives of individuals and communities.
Mangos, guavas, lemons and heaps of vegetables – all things that students at a Mweela Primary School in Sinazongwe can cultivate now, thanks to a hand pump in the courtyard.
Imagine going to school and not being able to access clean water. How would you stay hydrated? Stay clean and sanitary? Stay engaged in your learning?
“Water is life,” says Nene Kaunga. “In school, we teach learners the importance of water and the sources of water.”
The school’s deputy head teacher goes on to explain that the borehole saves them from walking long distances to fetch water and may provide the only safe drinking water that some of their rural students have access to throughout the day.
Operation Eyesight, with help from our generous donors, installed the borehole in 2008 to help prevent the spread of trachoma. The spread of this infectious disease, which causes vision loss, eye pain and eventually blindness, can be prevented with frequent hand and face washing. For that, you need safe, clean water.
“Hygienically, this water is very safe,” says Nene. “We’ve never had any child who has suffered from waterborne diseases as a result of drinking this water.”
On site access to clean water enables the Gift of Sight for students, but there are even more ripple effects. Since the borehole was installed, teachers have seen more girls enrolling and staying in school. And they’re no longer staying home from school during their periods, thanks to the fresh water, soap and pads the school provides.
As well as tending to an orchard and vegetable garden, the students also use the water to wash their hands and faces, clean the latrines and, on Fridays, mop their classrooms.
The ability to attend school and without the barrier of unsafe water provides not only the Gift of Sight for students in our areas of work, but also a life with endless potential.
Please give the Gift of Sight today.
In the village of Kwanga, in southern Zambia, the rehabilitation of a borehole has meant local access to abundant, fresh water for the entire community.
For Natasha, it’s brought the ability to attend school full time. Previously, she had to walk several kilometres each day to fetch water for her family. This took so much extra time and energy that she began missing school.
Together, we rehabilitated Kwanga’s borehole in 2021. It’s one of 96 non-functioning boreholes that we have rehabilitated in the past three years, in addition to the 106 that we have drilled in the Sinazongwe district, in Zambia’s arid south.
This has helped eliminate blinding trachoma infections from the district. Locally-available water has also brought a host of benefits across communities like Natasha’s, including improved health outcomes, thriving local economies and improved opportunities for women and girls.
"Access to fresh water prevents the spread of trachoma and other infections and also brings many benefits to the local community,” explains Vikas Gora, our Global Director of International Programs.
Now that the borehole in her village is functioning again, Natasha and several other girls in her class no longer have to haul water for long distances, and they are back attending school full time.
Access to clean water doesn’t just help reduce the spread of infection — it brings long-lasting and sustainable change to the entire community.
Thanks to our donors and partnerships with local Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) committees that are trained to maintain boreholes and ensure their longevity, we’re creating a ripple effect that is being felt in other communities across Zambia.
Just three years ago, many would have thought backyard gardens were impossible in Zambia’s arid Sinazongwe district.
Today, when I visit the villages in and around the area, I see families growing their own food – corn, vegetables, even peanuts. I see the smiling, healthy faces of children on their way to and from school. I see well-fed goats, chickens, cows and other livestock. I see communities thriving.
It’s proof that bringing local access to clean water makes the impossible, possible.
Operation Eyesight began working in Sinazongwe in 2001.Over the last three years, in partnership with the Zambia Department of Water Affairs, our focus has been rehabilitating defunct and dysfunctional water boreholes in the area, as well as drilling new ones. To date, we have drilled 106 boreholes and rehabilitated 96 more around Sinazongwe – bringing clean, fresh water to communities that previously lacked local water sources.
Why rehabilitate boreholes rather than just drill new ones? Unlike drilling a new water borehole which takes time to identify a location and install necessary infrastructure, rehabilitation of previously drilled (by other NGOs) and non-functioning boreholes costs less and brings many quick wins for communities. Therefore, borehole rehabilitation makes the best use of every dollar spent.
Clean water and avoidable blindness
Operation Eyesight’s mission is to prevent blindness and restore sight. In Sinazongwe, trachoma was one of the leading causes of preventable blindness. I use the past tense, because our partnership with local communities to improve access to clean water has reduced the prevalence of this devastating infection in the district.
Trachoma is a bacterial infection that leads to irreversible blindness if left untreated. Although trachoma can be treated with antibiotics if caught early enough, lack of access to fresh water and inadequate hygiene are significant contributors to this painful disease’s spread through villages and communities. So, in Sinazongwe, bringing access to fresh water is the most effective way to address preventable blindness at its root cause, as well as prevent the transmission of many other illnesses and diseases. When people have access to fresh water, they can wash their hands, faces and clothing and prevent the spread of infection.
I often explain to our donors and hospital partners that you can’t tell people to wash their face if they have no clean water. Our team works in these communities every day and we are now starting to see behavioural changes where people are washing their faces more frequently. We are therefore addressing the root cause – and not the effect – of the problem.
I have personally seen the shift that takes place when clean water comes into a community. It’s an impact that extends beyond eye health, hygiene and improved health outcomes generally.
Downstream benefits
Access to water targets a range of different issues, especially for those responsible for drawing water: women and children.
In my work with Zambian communities over the past four years, I have found that bringing water closer to home actually improves school attendance in the majority of schools and communities where we are working. In fact, in areas where Operation Eyesight is working, we are seeing more girls in school than boys. It’s actually giving girls a chance to get an education.
Why? Because they don’t have to walk long distances fetching water from water holes, rivers and streams. This labour-intensive process leaves them fatigued when the time comes to go to school later in the day.
When water is far away, families are unable to store enough for their household. They may have enough for cooking and drinking, but do not have enough for washing and cleaning. Additionally, depending on its source, water may not be safe to drink. On the other hand, when clean water points are closer to home, it means families have enough water in their household at any given time.
Getting the whole community involved
We know that community ownership and maintenance of a borehole ensures its longevity. I have seen first-hand that partnering with local community leaders to form Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) committees – comprised of both men and women – helps spread awareness in the community about how to use and maintain the borehole and ensures its longevity.
Experience has taught us that children can be our greatest teachers. School WASH clubs are also making waves in their communities, building healthy hygiene habits among students by encouraging them to wash their faces when they arrive at school. Health education sessions are also helping make children ambassadors for proper hygiene when they go back to their own families.
Replicating success
Part of what makes Operation Eyesight so unique is our philosophy of not only empowering communities to look after their own water sources, but also our ability to scale and spread these successes.
The benefits and quick wins that come with locally-available fresh water are not limited to Sinazongwe but can – and are – being replicated in other parts of the country and African continent. In 2021 we drilled five new boreholes and rehabilitated 51 more in communities in Zambia’s Central province and have similar projects underway in other parts of Kenya.
Our approach to empowering communities and amplifying impact is what makes Operation Eyesight so unique. We are targeting vision loss and preventable blindness at their root cause.
Replicating our approach, while taking into consideration the unique needs and strengths of our communities of work, we are bringing entire communities back to life, health and prosperity.
