Cataraction by Orbis: For Vaishnavi's sake please don't turn a blind eye

Vaishnavi's dad, San, had high hopes for his little girl and wanted to see her to do well in school. All that was threatened when he noticed that the five-year-old wasn't playing as much as she used to and kept falling over, telling him she couldn't see.

After seeing something had developed in Vaishnavi's eye, San took her to the doctor in their village in the state of Bihar, in India. The doctor explained that she had a cataract and that with time it would only get worse. Commonly, most cases of cataracts occur in older people, but the eye condition can appear at any age - even in childhood.

San was very worried and knew he needed to get treatment for his little girl quickly.

The longer a child like Vaishnavi waits for eye surgery, the more likely they will suffer irreversible damage and become blind for life.

A straight-forward cataract operation would be free to us on the NHS. For Vaishnavi, who lives in a small village in India, it wasn't as simple as a quick trip to her local hospital. The local doctor wasn't able to perform the surgery and told San they needed to go to a bigger hospital, 150km away.

Your help is needed to treat the thousands of people in developing countries diagnosed with cataract every year, and end this needless loss of sight.

At Orbis, we believe that no one should go blind simply because of where they were born.

Our team of medical experts give up their free time to train eye care teams in developing countries and were able to operate on Vaishnavi for free. Now she can look forward to going to school and has a brighter future ahead of her.

There are so many more children just like Vaishnavi struggling with their vision. In Bihar alone, over 700,000 people are blind with less than half unable to access sight-saving surgery and the region also has the lowest literacy rates for girls.

San knows how important good vision is for his young daughter's future. He said: “I wanted to get her treatment as soon as possible because she’s so young and I know that when she grows older it might get difficult. I want her to have the cataract removed as soon as possible. I want her to grow up and study. I don’t know where destiny will take her but I definitely want to make sure that she studies.”

Will you help provide the same independence and freedom to more people like Vaishnavi who are currently facing a lifetime of blindness?