CBM Inclusive Eye Health Initiatives
Stories | July 31, 2019
At CBM, Inclusive Eye Health means ensuring eye health programmes are accessible and open to all members of the community, including people with disability and others who are marginalised and socially excluded. It also includes proactively ensuring that people with long term vision impairment access their right to wider opportunities to health, education and livelihoods leading to social inclusion. This work is done in support of national health systems and policies to ensure sustainability of our approach in these communities.
Inclusive eye health has four elements:
- Promotion of healthy eyes and behaviour through awareness raising at all levels
- Prevention of eye diseases
- Curative interventions (medical, surgical, optical)
- Rehabilitation – access to rehabilitation services (Community Based Inclusive Development – low vision, inclusive education, livelihoods and social inclusion)
Across our Inclusive Eye Health Initiative CBM prioritises three areas:
- Strengthening national eye health systems – While we aim to support partners in the implementation of inclusive and comprehensive eye health services, it is through integration into national health systems that these services will become sustainable, fully locally owned, and delivered to contextualised quality standards.
- Improved access to inclusive, comprehensive eye care services – This includes multi-pronged interventions to prevent and treat avoidable blindness and to improve the quality of life of people with permanent visual impairment. CBM’s target groups are often socially excluded as well as lacking access to educational, economic and social opportunities. We focus resources on partners that are fully committed to delivering inclusive and comprehensive services to communities most in need.
- Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) – By focusing on the poorest and most NTD-endemic communities, and strengthening integration with national systems, we expand access to preventative and curative services, with mass drug administration for trachoma and onchocerciasis. For trachoma. Within a disability inclusive development framework, NTD programmes develop referral networks to rehabilitation, counselling and mainstream education and livelihood opportunities. NTD programmes through partners are maintained in some form even during instability and conflict.
CBM is proud that this initiative is led by CBM’s technical experts and works in partnership with local health providers and communities to meet the needs of people with preventable, treatable or permanent vision impairment.
………….
Miracles Day gives Australians the opportunity to give someone the Miracle gift of sight, with a 12-minute operation costing just $33. This year, through Miracles Day, you can help give 40,000 people the sight-saving surgery they need to see again.
Miracles Day happens across Australia on August 6. To find out more or donate, visit cbm.org.au/miraclesday
https://www.cbm.org.au/stories/cbm-inclusive-eye-health-initiatives
Related Stories
A Light of Hope
Content Warning: The story in this letter refers to suicide, which may be distressing for some readers. If you or someone you know is in need of support, please...
Small Business, Big Impact: supporting mental health in Indonesia
Work is a big part of our lives. Not...
A Resilient Woman
Margie, a mother of seven, is a daycare worker in a small coastal village in the Philippines. A few years ago, Margie was diagnosed with a mental health condition after...