About

Objectives

We are a dedicated team of Scottish Pakistani heritage.  We have made frequent visits to rural areas in Pakistan and were exposed to extreme levels of poverty.  Experiencing the hardship that comes with visual impairment, sparked our passion to do more than just hand out financial aid.

Poor eyesight has a huge impact on our ability to function well. The most common impact we noticed was men and women not being able to work to provide for their families, children unable to see the board in schools impacting education, elderly not able to go outside without being guided or even being able to see their grandchildren due to dense cataracts. Developing cataracts will cause your sight to become cloudy and misty, however very dense cataracts cause complete vision loss. Sight is the most valuable of our five senses and this has really motivated us to help restore it.

We have brought together our skills from corporate, social, and healthcare sectors, to form Sight Relief.  We not only provide sight saving eye treatment but look to build sustainability by raising awareness of general eye care and develop local screening capabilities.  We aim to do this by providing training, funding, and support grassroot community projects and local government.  We provide financial and other support as appropriate to those severely impacted by financial challenges.

The longer term strategy is to establish local primary eyecare centres in these rural areas, with locally trained staff, providing a sustainable facility for eye examinations and create employment opportunities.  These will also facilitate future outreach activities including eye camps. As we become more established with our pathways and systems, we are looking for opportunities in other countries across the world. Volunteers will be welcome to join us in our campaigns, we are currently working on pathways for this.

Our Team

Our team is made up of 3 members:

  1. Fully qualified, independent prescribing optometrist registered with the College of Optometrists in the UK.  Responsible for personally overseeing and coordinating the eye camps and patient care.
  2. A Senior member born in Pakistan bringing local knowledge of target areas in rural Pakistan and East Africa.  Responsible for identifying target communities and on the ground support, logistics and community engagement.
  3. An experienced financial and management consultant, supporting the back office management of Finances, Administration and formal engagement with Hospital and local government.