This is Elizabeth. For the past three years, glaucoma has been gradually stealing her sight, making it more and more difficult for her to grow food for her and her husband.
Glaucoma can be treated, halting the loss of sight. But without treatment, it causes irreversible blindness.
Can you help us reach people like Elizabeth, living in some of the world’s poorest places, before it’s too late?
You can stop glaucoma from stealing people’s sight
Three years ago, Elizabeth started noticing problems with her sight. She found it impossible to carry on working:
"I could not sleep properly because all of the time tears were coming out. I was unable to continue farming or cutting grasses for feeding the animals.”
Elizabeth and her husband are small farmers. Like many people in Tanzania, they manage to grow only enough of their own crops to eat. As Elizabeth’s husband can’t walk properly and they have no family nearby, the couple rely on Elizabeth to do the bulk of the farming.
Losing her sight would leave Elizabeth and her husband utterly destitute.
With access to prescribed eye drops, and sometimes undergoing laser eye surgery, the progression of glaucoma can be stopped. This is why early diagnosis is so important.
For Elizabeth, the journey to hospital costs around 3,000 Tanzanian shillings – that’s about the same as one British pound. But even this is beyond what she and her husband can afford.
Will you help to save the sight of someone like Elizabeth, before it’s too late?
With your support, we can ensure that people living in the world’s poorest communities can access medical treatment and keep working to support their families.