About the program

Since independence in 1991, substantial work has been done to rebuild the education and health systems and Eritrea is recognised as a country that has a strong primary health care system in place. 

However, life expectancy in Eritrea is still just 56.6 years, around 78 per 1000 children die before the age of five due to malnutrition and other similar causes, and diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS are also prevalent.

Working to eliminate avoidable blindness by 2015

The Foundation aligns its work with Eritrea's National Plan for the Prevention of Blindness, with the overall goal being to eliminate avoidable blindness in Eritrea by 2015. This is an ambitious target, but one we believe is possible, and we are in the process of clarifying the indicators that will be used to measure this achievement.

Through our program work, The Foundation is working to ensure that good quality, accessible, affordable, and sustainable eye care services are available to the population.

A major focus of our work is to train primary health care workers to treat minor eye infections and to refer more serious cases to specialist eye units. Primary health workers are also being trained in eye health promotion.

At the secondary level, focus is being placed on training and equipping eye health personnel to treat and manage common eye diseases. At the tertiary level, the aim is to build the capacity of the national eye hospital to train and mentor secondary level personnel, as well as provide specialist eye care services.

The core components of our program work in Eritrea are:  

• Disease control and prevention
• Human resource development
• Infrastructure development
• Operational research, program monitoring and evaluation
• Advocacy, partnership, coordination and collaboration.