What Is Sightsavers?

Updated

Sightsavers is an international charity that works to prevent avoidable blindness, fight disease, and support equality for women, girls, and people with disabilities. If you want to understand what the organisation does, where it operates, or how to get involved, here is a clear overview based on its own published information.

What Sightsavers does

Its mission is to prevent avoidable blindness, fight disease, and ensure everyone can earn, learn, and thrive. The organisation describes its work as starting with sight but not stopping there — eye health is the entry point, and the wider goal is equality and inclusion.

Its stated areas of work include:

  • Protecting sight — providing eye operations and eye care
  • Fighting disease — including trachoma elimination efforts
  • Training health workers in the countries where it operates
  • Supporting people with disabilities and campaigning for disability rights and inclusion
  • Improving women's health

Where it works

Sightsavers works in more than 30 countries in Africa and Asia. Its work spans training health workers, providing eye operations, supporting people with disabilities, improving women's health, and more.

How it is run and funded

Sightsavers describes itself as a charity with a published structure and reporting:

  • Annual reports are available, and the organisation publishes information on how it is run.
  • Fundraising comes through individual donors, corporate partnerships, and legacy gifts left in wills.
  • Spending: according to the organisation, 92% of donations (including donated supplies) go to its vital charity work, and 8% helps grow awareness and funding.

How to get involved

The organisation lists several ways to support its work:

  • Donate — a gift is described as potentially helping stop a child going blind from preventable causes.
  • Support a TV appeal — Sightsavers runs broadcast appeals.
  • Read and share stories — news, expert blogs, and case studies are published on the site.
  • Leave a donation in your will — a legacy gift is presented as supporting the work for generations.
  • Corporate partnerships — for organisations rather than individuals.

What you can explore on the site

If you want to see the work in practice rather than read about it, the site offers several entry points:

  • Disability inclusion champions — profiles showing how projects are changing the world
  • The history of trachoma — background on the disease that affects millions
  • A virtual tour of a rural surgery camp — an operating theatre where eye surgery takes place
  • Stories and blogs — first-person accounts, such as Ruth, who has a visual impairment and now runs several small businesses, and a blog on how the organisation is helping to beat trachoma

Quick reference

Question Answer
What is it? An international charity
Core mission Prevent avoidable blindness, fight disease, ensure equality
Where does it work? More than 30 countries in Africa and Asia
Main activities Eye operations, training health workers, disease elimination, disability rights, women's health
How is it funded? Donations, corporate partnerships, legacy gifts
How much goes to programmes? 92% of donations (including donated supplies)

The clearest way to decide whether to support or follow Sightsavers is to look at its annual reports and the specific projects described on its site, then judge whether its approach to eye health and disability inclusion matches what you want to back.