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Gender and Sustainability
Seva Influences the International Eye Care Agenda
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Seva's pioneering Sight Programs have always maintained a focus on the issues of gender inequity and sustainability. Yet these haven't been priority items on the agenda for VISION 2020, the international campaign to eliminate avoidable blindness. Now, that's starting to change — thanks in part to Seva Sight Program Director, Dr. Suzanne Gilbert. |
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Suzanne represents Seva in the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) and serves on the IAPB Board of Trustees. In September, she attended the IAPB Council of Members meeting in Hanoi, and returned with good news. "We added two discussion events this year — one dealing with the question of how to build sustainability in community-based eye care programs, and one dealing with the need to ensure our work takes into account the worldwide gender gap in eye care services," Suzanne explained. "That's the first time that's happened.” |
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Expanding the Vision
Importantly, IAPB members are ready to work on these issues in an ongoing way. "The response among members was really positive," Suzanne continued, "so much so that IAPB is now establishing working groups to focus specifically on gender and sustainability. It represents an important step forward."
Seva is one of 60 non-governmental organizations from around the world that comprise the IAPB. VISION 2020 is a global initiative launched by IAPB together with the World Health Organization. The mission of VISION 2020 is to eliminate the main causes of all preventable and treatable blindness as a public health issue by the year 2020.
The Gender Issue
Suzanne says most people don't realize that women are disproportionately affected by preventable vision loss, accounting for two-thirds of the world's blind. "But once you know that, it just can't be ignored," she declares. "It's especially important because in so many countries women have much less access to eye care services than men do.
If we're going to reach the VISION 2020 goals, then programs need to figure out how to make their work gender-sensitive."
Some of the barriers women face in seeking treatment relate to marital status, limited access to financial resources, family bias toward favoring wage earners, and restricted ability to travel. Seva and its partners have made a point of addressing these issues in our Sight Program activities around the world.
"Having an IAPB group focus on the gender issue will help," says Suzanne. "It's going to start building awareness and sooner or later, you'll see improvements in service delivery."
The Sustainability Issue
"Seva has had a core focus on sustainability since we began," Suzanne says, smiling. "But for a lot of organizations, it's something new. In IAPB, people are realizing that ultimately, the work of VISION 2020 will be futile unless we get a handle on the sustainability issue. That requires a shift from being a "charity" to being a true development organization."
Seva looks for solutions that will be lasting. In practice, that means ensuring that local people have the knowledge and resources to provide quality eye care and the skills to effectively manage the program themselves. Local leaders must set the program's direction, and each organization must grow to become self-sufficient.
"Our partnerships with the Aravind Eye Care System in India and the Lumbini Eye Care Program in Nepal have shown that well-managed eye hospitals can serve large numbers of blind people, keep the unit cost of care low, and insure high quality service that keeps more people coming," explains Suzanne. "It's the proverbial win-win — and the model is now being adapted to many other communities and countries around the world. If we start to see that approach taken up by IAPB in the context of VISION 2020, I think we'll see some really exciting work being done in the next few years."
For more information on IAPB and VISION 2020, visit:
International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness
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