Tag: school eye screening

How the Young Will See Their Future – and the cost to all of us if they don’t

Posted on by Kate Moynihan
Photo of David Mukisa by Joe Raffanti.
Photo by Joe Raffanti: From the age of two, David Mukisa from Busia, Uganda, lived with poor eyesight, affecting every aspect of his young life. When he was seven, his mother joined a group traveling to Seva-supported Benedictine Eye Hospital. There, he was diagnosed with cataracts, and received bilateral cataract surgeries for free. “Fortunately he could be treated, even though I didn’t have money,” said David’s mom Alexia. ”A great weight has been lifted from my heart.”

Last month, the Seva Foundation and The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness released a groundbreaking report revealing a striking truth:

Children with vision loss learn at half the rate of those with good or corrected vision. Put another way – every year, 6.3 million school years are lost due to uncorrected vision, amounting to $173 billion in future earnings each year. Imagine the impact if those kids could simply see the board. What innovations would emerge? What challenges could these young minds overcome?

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Two Seva Studies Spotlight Cost of Eye Care

Posted on by Seva Foundation

High-quality data for global economic estimates in eye health, particularly for low-income and middle-income countries, is limited. Two years ago, Seva started an initiative to spotlight the ‘cost of community and primary care in eye health’ and ‘The economic and social costs of visual impairment and blindness’ with the aim to generate first-hand evidence. 

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