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Simple, local treatment can solve millions of eye complaints each month.

About the project

Pakistan’s existing network of Lady Health Workers can now add eye care treatments and checks to the care they give families across the country.

Through our partners Sightsavers International, we have given them training to deliver eye care treatments, checks, and vital information to help prevent and treat blindness.

Each month, there are up to 9 million eye-related complaints – many in the poorest communities. But most need only simple treatment that can mean the difference between keeping or losing eye sight.

The country’s 100,000 Lady Health Workers provide a vital front-line health service. Each worker makes home visits to around 200 families a month. In a country of closely-knit communities with strict cultural codes, families - and especially women - are often more comfortable being treated by a Lady Health Worker than a male doctor or nurse. Two-thirds of Pakistan's 1.5 million blind people are female.

Lady Health Workers themselves are being empowered through the enhanced training - and can offer an inspiring role model for other women in the community.

By the end of this project, we will have provided:

• Primary Eye Care training to 20,000 Lady Health Workers, in line with the recommendations of the Pakistan National Programme for Prevention and Control of Blindness 2005 – 2010
• Help for up to 1,950,000 people with eye problems
• Vital help and awareness to prevent and treat blindness, direct to families in need.

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