Sunny Sessions with Sight For All

Neeta Bhise, Marketing Manager at Sight For All

For those who aren’t familiar, can you tell us a bit about Sight For All and how it came to be?

Sight For All is a not-for-profit organisation which delivers eye health care projects to where help is most needed. Throughout the world there are 285 million people who are vision impaired due to eye disease or lack of glasses. Yet 90% of vision loss is avoidable. 

Sight For All delivers sustainable eye health care to partner countries and communities by undertaking research, providing sustainable education, building infrastructure and raising awareness of eye health care.

We were established 15 years ago when three South Australian ophthalmologists Drs. James Muecke, Henry Newland and Bob Casson volunteered on sight-saving projects in Asia. They saw a gap in the provision of eye health services in our neighbouring developing countries. This gap spawned the seed of an idea that the doctors could offer something unique to improve the sight of tens of thousands.

By working with their foreign colleagues, areas of need were identified, and by providing sub-specialty education and equipping eye clinics, a sustainable sight-saving model was born. This model became the basis of Sight For All.


What sets Sight For All apart from other not-for-profit health organisations?

So many things, but here are 5 that come to mind!

1. Governance. Our commitment to delivering high-quality eye health care is in our DNA, with 50% of our Board of Directors comprised of eye care professionals. This ensures our focus is never lost. 
2. We provide solutions where help is most required and determine this by working with local governments to provide support they need. For example, we trained Myanmar’s first Paediatric Ophthalmologist in 2009 (Dr Than Htun Aung) based on the outcomes of a research study of causes of the country’s childhood blindness. We set up a Paediatric eye clinic in Mynanmar’s primary public hospital and since then Dr Aung has trained his own Fellows, sharing the knowledge and skills he learned from Sight For All. He and his team now treat close to 40,000 children per year.  
3. Sustainability. We don’t want to provide aid only when we can fly in and fly out. We want to upskill our colleagues all over the world, so they can treat their own communities. This pillar was so critical during the travel bans of 2020 and 2021, where aid organisations were limited with their delivery. Because Sight For All had already established the foundations of speciality eye health care, we could continue our teaching remotely.  
4. We are small but mighty. We have a team of 5 staff in Australia, and three Country Officers in Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Cambodia. Our structure allows us to be nimble, responsive and efficient. It also means we have lower overheads than many other NFPs, so donor gifts can have more impact!
5. Eye healthcare professionals prefer to work with us. We are able to deliver training because of our incredible network of Visionaries; eye health care professionals who donate their time to our shared mission. They travel and teach, they raise awareness and they believe in our cause. 

Have you had any favourite projects of those completed by Sight For All so far? 

I’m really proud of every project we complete, as I know how much work goes into ensuring they are not only successful but have a lasting impact on the community it serves. 


What advice do you have for those who want to get involved with organisations like Sight For All, but don’t know where to start?

Whatever support you can give- please do. Donations to Sight For All over $2 are tax deductible. We rely on donations to keep our projects going, so please give if you can. 

For those who want to volunteer or support our organisation in another way, please contact us via our website sightforall.org and we can talk!


Go-to brands for sunglasses or optical frames? 

Ray-Bans and Persol are classic and durable for sunnies! 

Lilly Psomadelis, Eye Health Educator at Sight For All

If you could summarise your role at Sight For All what would it be?

My role is Eye Health Educator for New South Wales. This is a natural extension of the global aim of Sight For All, which is creating a world where everyone can see. In Australia, our focus is to increase knowledge of eye health in the hopes of reducing all causes of visual impairment. In New South Wales this is my role- community education, particularly targeted to those most at risk of developing visually threatening eye conditions. 


What is the reality for those who do not have access to proper eye care?

When vision is restricted or lost, it can severely affect our independence and ability to do everyday things like driving to work or even the supermarket. It prevents us from seeing our families' faces too. Poor vision can affect the kind of work we can do and the way we communicate with others and take care of ourselves. In some instances, this means our health and overall quality of life can be highly impacted.

For those people in Australia and in other countries, it can feel like access to eye healthcare is limited (or it may actually be limited!) The result is delayed diagnosis which can lead to irreparable damage to our eyes. 

What are the top 3 things you feel people might overlook when it comes to eye health?

1. Complacency- if we have no problems with our vision, it is easy to skip the recommended regular comprehensive eye tests. The unfortunate result of this, is that many eye diseases that develop slowly over time can start to cause irreversible damage to the eyes, diabetes being a prime example. An eye health care professional can generally find signs of visually threatening issues and organise management before this damage occurs. 
2. Poor Lifestyle Choices- smoking, lack of exercise, and a poor diet can lead to poor vision long-term.
3. Day to Day maintenance- chronic dehydration and lack of daily eye protection.

How worried should we be about eye problems down the track if we don't take care of them now and why?

In Australia, three of the main causes of visual loss are macular degeneration, glaucoma and diabetic eye disease. In some cases, these conditions can exist even if we are otherwise quite healthy and slowly start causing damage to our eye and therefore our quality and longevity of vision before we start to notice the changes visually, and they cannot be felt generally. There is a dangerous point with these conditions however, where intervention will no longer work, and this is unfortunate and unnecessary. These conditions can then move forward to create loss of central clarity or peripheral vision which then goes on to affect independence. Family history, the use of certain prescription medications, or trauma can lead to the development of these conditions. But, if detected early, generally intervention can prevent loss of vision long-term.


What are frequently asked questions from people you speak to about eye health care? 

I am always very happy to answer questions from the community members I speak with! Once the importance of eye health maintenance is understood, participants are generally very hungry to learn the best ways to take care of their eyes and their eye health. Most questions surround this concern, and many realise the necessity of maintaining the regularity of eye testing.

Go-to brands for sunglasses or optical frames?

I recommend sunglasses to be worn to all of my patients, regardless of age. My only requirement is that they have UV 400 protection, which provides nearly 100% protection from harmful ultraviolet light rays, and if possible, side protection, or that they are slightly curved to give maximum coverage from the sun. 

For more information about Sight For All, or if you would like to make a donation, visit the website here.