August updates: highlights from around the world

Teachers trained to take part in school eye health programme

A half-day training course has been held in Islamabad to give teachers the skills to screen their students for eye conditions.

In total, 32 teachers attended the training session (pictured above) as part of Sightsavers’ SHIP programme. This aims to help teachers identify eye conditions such as refractive errors and common eye ailments. Any children found to have vision issues can then be referred to an optometrist to be diagnosed and treated.

Over the next three years, the project aims to train 1,500 teachers in Pakistan so they can screen more than 200,000 children in 422 schools in the Islamabad region. More from Pakistan

Sightsavers programme officer Cristina wins university accolade

Cristina Abudo Pires, who works in Sightsavers’ Mozambique office, has been named best student on her masters course in development management.

Cristina has been studying at the Catholic University of Mozambique in Beira, and received her diploma on 17 August 2019. She was presented with a certificate to commemorate her achievement as best student. More from Mozambique

Sightsavers helps to develop national eye health policy

Sightsavers has been working with the Nigeria Federal Ministry of Health to draw up a national policy on eye health.

The policy aims to ensure more collaboration on eye health in the country, and is now waiting for final approval from the National Council on Health before it is formally adopted. It is hoped it will enable more collaboration to ensure more people can be treated for eye conditions, particularly in poorer areas.

The policy is likely to benefit residents such as 45-year-old Hajiya Luba, from Tambagarka in northern Nigeria. She has been working as a community volunteer for the past six years, distributing medication to help treat and protect local people from trachoma.

“We advocate for facial cleanliness and environmental sanitation, and help to educate people – particularly women ­– about its importance,” she says. “We pray for those who are supporting us with the free drugs and surgeries and hope it keeps coming.” More from Nigeria