At our Club meeting on Monday 12 April we welcomed Rotarian Fiona Miles to talk to us, via Zoom, about the Rotary Project Global Sight Solutions
The presentation materials are not provided here because all of the information is on the website www.globalsightsolutions.org please take some time to browse through and find out more about this life changing project. A brief summary of Fiona’s presentation is here:
Global Sight Solutions’ mission is to provide free eye care and eye surgery to the very poor in the developing world. It is an avoidable blindness charity. It was registered with the charity commission back in the 90’s by members of Guildford Rotary Club, the aim being to work with Rotary Clubs in the developing world and together establish financially sustainable eye hospitals which can provide a full range of eye 
care, free to the world’s poorest. The goal was to restore sight to 1 million people. The target of treating 100,000 patients per year was achieved by 2015 so now the target is 150,000.
There are estimated to be as many as 650 million people worldwide who, due to poverty, are just too poor to access the necessary eye care medical solutions for themselves. Of that number around 50 million fall are preventably blind. The vast majority of 
these 50 million people are in need of what is invariably a straight forward cataract operation. Global Sight Solutions establishes eye hospitals, which provide free eye care to those who need it most. They ensure that each hospital becomes financially independent and offers sustainably high standards of care. GSS provides surgeon training, bus transportation and surgical equipment so that free eye operations and treatment are available to those that need them. To date they have opened more than 70 specialist eye hospitals in India, Africa and elsewhere. Their vision is for everyone in the world to have access to the surgical procedures they need to prevent sight loss and improve their sight, by 
establishing self-sustaining eye hospital developing countries. Their mission is to provide sustainable and long term solutions that provide free eye care and eye surgery to under-served and marginalised populations. The hospitals will only be set up where they can be run independently on a continuing basis. A £5 donation becomes £15 with matched funding and can pay for a life changing cataract operation.
The demand in India is the greatest of all the countries where they are working. Health equality is ensured and 50% of patients are women. The main causes are poor diet, lack of education, genetic issues, lack of clean water/sanitation.
As always our Members asked lots of great questions. We established that Fiona is one of the 33 Rotary Ambassadors for the project. There are many child eye traumas and parents who are aware of the eye hospitals take them there for treatment. Children with cataracts need to be treated by age 7 for full recovery. The focus of the eye hospitals is on surgical interventions. Excess UV light and dehydration can cause cataracts. Prevention is in improved diet, housing, stopping unhygienic pond washing and kohl around the eyes. Trauchoma is more prevalent in Africa than India. Sadly COVID has caused many hospitals to have to close.
The Club made a donation of £60 to Global Sight Solutions, which equates to 12 cataract operations. We were inspired to hear about such a great project.
Club Meeting – After Fiona left the meeting we held a regular Club meeting. Everyone was encouraged to attend the Club’s AGM on 26 April, which is always a great time to reflect on what the Club has achieved over the last year and to look forward to the year ahead. This will be a special AGM because we will mark the 100th anniversary year of Soroptimist International. We will also hear some reflections from Joan Williams, our longest standing Member who joined our Club in 1967!
We heard about the medical blister pack recycling initiative – you can read more about it here www.sigbi.org/st-albans/projects/bras
Lastly we ran through the programme of events for the new Club year – lots of things are planned so make sure the dates are in your diaries www.sigbi.org/st-albans/club-programme