A special holiday in london !

By Mariamma, Ilda, Emily, John, Krishna, Sahadeo, Gajanan & Shantaram

It was a dream came true for all of us when we learned that we have an all expense paid holiday in London. It was exciting and we were eagerly looking forward to it. We were all excited the moment we realized that eight of us from Regional Office were travelling together to UK for a holiday. Thanks for making this “Dream come True” through Sightsavers’ Long Service Reward Trip!
For most of us, this being our first International tour, a little nervousness and anxiety was there in our minds. On 11th July 2010, as soon as we landed safely at the Gatwick Airport we could feel the cool breeze passing through and on the way from the Airport to the Hotel Arora, we were mesmerized by the beauty of the location and all our worries and anxieties faded.

Sightsavers Head Quarters at Haywards Heath

Atta boys in office backyard

On 12th July 2010 we were on the way to Sightsavers Office at Haywards Heath and were taken aback at the beautiful scenery, the calmness and its landscape some of us felt wow! The Heaven on Earth! Having reached Sightsavers Office and being introduced to Staff members we were touched by their warm hospitality. Having received the recognition and acknowledgement of Long service award, made all of us feel marvelous and speechless. (thanks to Mark Barrette & Elizabeth for making this happen!).

It was very kind of Alicia to take us for sightseeing to London, the Duck Tour – which was amazing, Trip to London’s West End & Shopping on Oxford Street! The next day we visited ICEH, went again for sightseeing around London Bridge, Tower of London and of course the London Eye! The next two days it was Clare Oliver’s turn, who took us to Brighton, Brighton pier and we enjoyed the famous fish and Chips! We visited the North Lanes, the Royal Pavilion. We enjoyed travelling by the metro rail – which was again a new experience for most of us. In the evening on 15th July we had visited the country park, enjoyed the bowling ball and then the lovely dinner arranged by Jane, Carol and Christie.

Our special thanks to Alicia, Calre, Jane, Carol and Christie.

We all enjoyed the sightseeing, shopping and we were wondering how soon those five days flew away!

Each and every one of us felt this was the most memorable trip down to UK and wish more to follow!!!!!!!

SAME Workshop at Malawi

By Jayashree Kumar

North India Area Office

The visit to Malawi was planned to attend a regional workshop on SAME (Sightsavers Aligned Monitoring & Evaluation) from 25-27 Sept 10 at Crossroads Hotel, Lilongwe.

Key learnings

1. The integration of PEC into PHC through Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) is a strong foundation for a more sustainable delivery of eye health services. I was impressed by the HSAs – they are very well equipped with skills to identify & treat basic eye conditions & cases requiring more complex treatment referred to the district hospital. But this all depends upon how the health workers are provided with correct knowledge, skills & sensitivity to prioritize eye health.


2. The eye care activities when easily linked with other departments have potential of getting more resources & a wider coverage. For ex- There are no separate eye camps held at PHC rather it is clubbed with other camps organized at the fixed dates.


3. It was interesting to know - Sightsavers & MOH officials make a joint visit (once in every quarter ) to the project implementing districts which they call it –support visits . They review & discuss the progress & suggest areas which need improvement at the district & PHC level . Ownership of the programme is seen – leading to the sustainability of the programme.


4. Malawi is short of trained health workers, not least eye specialists. with only four ophthalmologists in Malawi, a priority has been to train other health workers in eye care. So creating a more efficient workforce & primary eye care workers who can bring eye care to communities are given focused attention here.

* HSA: Sightsavers has supported Ministry of Health in developing a PEC training manual for HSAs which was intended to provide knowledge & skills to facilitate identification, treatment & referral of patients with eye conditions.( I have a copy of the manual if you want to refer). The Opthalmic Clinical Officer (OCO) uses this manual while training the Health workers.

Thankful to all the team members of the Malawi Sighsavers country office for the hospitality & the valuable time given during my visit. The Country Director Mercy Masoo has promised me to visit India to get an exposure of India programmes.

So that’s the Advocacy I have done …………………