Lions Sight Savers Trust

Lions Sight Savers Trust

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Key information

For over 40 years, Lions clubs across the British Isles have supported Sightsavers through the Lions Sight Savers Trust, to help stop thousands of people across Africa and Asia from going blind. An incredible £3.9 million has been donated from Lions clubs during this time.

Lions Sight Savers Trust

Bringing crucial eye health services to the most marginalised.

Eye health for everyone

Good vision is of paramount importance in many aspects of life, and visual impairment imposes a significant economic and social burden on individuals, carers, communities, and societies. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, our efforts to get back on track continued, boosted by the huge generosity of our supporters. By the end of 2022, all our programmes were running at full tilt. Sightsavers continues to provide vital eye care to ensure those most in need can access much-needed diagnoses and life-changing treatments. Blindness and poverty are closely linked, and a vicious cycle exists where a lack of health awareness and health services leads to poor eye health, which, in turn, can lead to blindness and increased poverty. We need your help to continue transforming the lives of so many children and adults at risk of losing their sight in some of the poorest parts of the world.

Melvin, 15 was struggling to read the blackboard at school. No matter how hard he squinted, he still could not see it properly. His grades suffered and his chance of a bright future was slipping away. Read Melvin’s story through the link below.

More than ever, your support is needed to ensure that marginalised people in some of the poorest parts of the world are not being left behind and can access the treatment they urgently need. We hope you will continue to support Lions Sight Savers this year.

Cheques or bank transfers can be made payable to your District, with cheques endorsed  on the back ‘Lions Sight Savers’ and sent to your District Treasurer in the usual way.

For further information please read the letter and the latest information below.

Donations by Lions clubs make a difference:

• £94 could pay for a child cataract surgery
• £300 could pay for personal protective equipment, including face masks and protective gowns
• £1,000 could cover the cost of distributing 400 pairs of glasses
• £3,000 could restore the sight of over 90 adults, saving them from a lifetime of blindness
• £5,000 could treat or protect over 27,000 people against the blinding neglected tropical disease trachoma.

About Sightsavers

Sightsavers’ vision is a world where no one is blind from avoidable causes, and people with visual impairments and other disabilities can participate equally in society.

More than 2.2 billion people in the world are blind or visually impaired. Over 1 billion have a condition that could have been prevented or can be treated. Of these, 89% live in countries where healthcare and social support systems are severely lacking. Simple eye health interventions – such as a cataract operation or a pair of glasses – cost relatively little and can drastically improve a person’s life.

Sightsavers works with governments and local partners in Asia and Africa to create robust and lasting eye health services to help people now and in the future. It provides eye operations for people who need them, and trains eye care workers and surgeons to offer sight-saving treatment. Through community volunteers, Sightsavers distributes medication to protect people from diseases in some of the world’s poorest countries. Since its work began in 1950, Sightsavers has helped to provide 8 million cataract operations, examined over 200 million people for eye conditions, and trained over 8,000 health workers to gain an initial professional qualification.

In 2022, Sightsavers:

• screened 8.8 million children and adults for eye health conditions
• supported over 472,441 life-changing surgeries
• distributed over 135 million treatments
• prescribed 782,037 pairs of glasses.

We hope Lions clubs will feel moved to support another year of our life-changing work.