Photo courtesy of Sandy Scheltema/The Age

Sandy Scheltema

Photo courtesy of Sandy Scheltema.
Photograpger Sandy Scheltema.

Sandy Scheltema is an award winning photographer, who works for The Age newspaper in Australia and on many interesting freelance projects.

Sandy's interest in social justice issues has also driven her to work for non government organisations such as The Fred Hollows Foundation. Sandy has taken striking photographs of The Foundation's work in Samoa, South Africa and Vietnam.

In 2002, Sandy visited The Fred Hollows Foundation's Eastern Cape Blindness Prevention Program in South Africa at the time it was being established.

Photo courtesy of Sandy Scheltema/The Age.
Yoki Mboma, (60), the day before surgery to remove cataracts from her eyes, at the Frontier Hospital, Queenstown (Eastern Cape, South Africa), February 2002.

To mark the 10th anniversary of The Foundation journalists and photographers, such as Sandy, visited The Foundation's programs in Australia and overseas to witness the impact of the programs and to document their experiences.

The result of these written and visual accounts is the book Through Other Eyes.

In South Africa, Sandy photographed the first of thousands of patients waiting to be operated on. "When I arrived in the village the people queried the medical staff at the Frontier Hospital 'Who do you think you are, God or something, saying you can make blind people see again?'"

Photo courtesy of Sandy Scheltema/The Age.
After cataract surgery, Nguyen Thi Tan is overjoyed at being able to see her granddaughters, Nguyen Thi Linh (left) and Nguyen Thi Kim Chi (right), again. Hai Vinh commune (Quang Tri province, Vietnam).

The medical staff informed the first patient, Nokhayinethi Dyantyi, that she would not die during the operation and eventually allowed Sandy to photograph her procedure.

"I gained her trust and she invited me into her home. When she returned home from the successful surgery, able to see again, the whole village was astonished. Soon after that, people from miles around appeared, wanting their sight restored as well".

Upon witnessing this, Sandy thought about the many lives that would change from helplessness to hope. Photos of Nokhayinethi's story won Sandy an award from 'Visions of Children', VISION 2020: The Right to Sight's global photographic competition.

Sandy's most recent documentation of The Foundation's work was undertaken in Vietnam in 2005. In Central Vietnam, Sandy followed a blind woman from her village to a local district hospital to have sight restoring surgery.

"I feel incredibly privileged to be able to photograph The Foundation's important work. Photography is all about sight and seeing and that's also what The Foundation's work is about. To see someone helpless, a burden on their family because of their blindness, then to see the changes in them and their families when their sight is restored is a marvelous thing."

Photo courtesy of Sandy Scheltema/Hollows.
Post operative patients at Hai Lang District Health Centre (Quang Tri province, central Vietnam).

While in Vietnam, Sandy also became aware of how the Agent Orange defoliant bombs (used by the Americans during the Vietnam War) caused birth defects in subsequent generations. Sandy spent some time photographing affected families and the resulting photos were published in The Age on the 30th anniversary of the Vietnam War, winning Sandy numerous awards including the Melbourne Press Club's 2005 'Quill Award' for Best Features Photograph as well as being a finalist in the 2005 Walkley Awards.

The Fred Hollows Foundation thanks Sandy for her continued support over many years.

Further Information 

To see more of Sandy's photos and others in our collection, please visit our photo collection.

To find out futher details about Sandy's work please contact her by:
Email: sandys@netcon.net.au, Phone: +61 354 241 659 or Mobile:+61 408 722 997.

Photo courtesy of Sandy Scheltema/Hollows.
Blind people who have heard about The Fred Hollows Foundation launching the Eastern Cape Blindness Prevention Program make their way to a village to see if they can be helped to see again. They are in Macibini, near Queenstown (Eastern Cape, South Africa), 24 February 2002.