Initiatives

Lions Clubs International Foundation funds a number of sight-related initiatives. These programs target a number of eye diseases and groups of people.

SightFirst Initiatives
Project for Elimination of Avoidable Childhood Blindness
More than US$4.5 million in SightFirst grant funding provided to establish 35 need-based Lions eye care centers in countries all over the globe, aimed especially at delivering preventative, therapeutic, and rehabilitative eye care services for 100 million children. The program is being done in concert with the World Health Organization. The program represents a broad counterattack against preventable childhood blindness.

Lions Eye Health Program Lions Eye Health Program (LEHP)
LEHP is the main SightFirst-funded initiative for industrialized nations. LEHP is a community-based public awareness initiative that encourages the early detection and timely treatment of glaucoma and diabetic eye disease and the appropriate treatment for low vision. LEHP has been active in the United States, Japan, the British Isles and Ireland, Canada, Australia and Turkey. LEHP has been revamped and improved in the United States. The new LEHP for the United States includes a new CD-ROM format, a new logo and design, a new LEHP Web site and development of new print materials. Perhaps most importantly, everyone interested in eye health can now participate in LEHP, not just Lions clubs. This will help increase eye health awareness.

River Blindness/Trachoma Control
SightFirst has supported more than 131 million treatments of river blindness in Africa and Latin America since it forged a partnership with The Carter Center in 1999. The treatments for river blindness have transformed individual lives and communities in 15 countries in Africa and Latin America. In fact, in Latin America, experts foresee eradicating river blindness once and for all by 2010. The grant to the Carter Center also targets trachoma, the world's leading cause of preventable blindness. SightFirst is controlling trachoma among 4.6 million people with zithromax treatments.

SightFirst China Action Project
Completed in 2002, Phase I of LCIF's SightFirst China Action (SFCA) supported 2.1 million cataract surgeries in China and established surgical eye units in 104 rural counties that previously had none. Phase II will once again address blindness on a large scale. A SightFirst grant of US$15.5 million was matched with about US$200 million from the Chinese government. During Phase II, an additional nearly 3 million cataract surgeries were performed, and eye care infrastructure was improved by creating secondary eye care units at hospitals in 200 underdeveloped counties, provinces and Tibet. To assure sustainable eye care services for the vast populations of rural poor, training courses for paramedics have been created in the western and northern provinces. A combined total of more than 5 million cataract surgeries have been performed since the program began.

Other Sight Initiatives (not SightFirst funded)
Sight for Kids
LCIF and Johnson & Johnson Vision Care have collaborated to develop Sight for Kids, a program that provides vision screenings and eye health education for children. Sight for Kids screens children for refractive error and other vision problems. More than 10 million children in Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, India, Sri Lanka and the Philippines have been screened through the program. Of those screened, 245,498 have been referred to physicians for further evaluation, 64,669 have received glasses and 47,476 have been treated for various eye conditions.

Lions-Special Olympics Opening Eyes
This program is a partnership between Lions Clubs International and Special Olympics to screen Special Olympics athletes at select games and provide glasses and sport goggles as needed. LCIF has given more than US$11 million to fund this program since it began in 2001. Lions and Special Olympics volunteers conduct the screenings, and more than 150,800 athletes have been screened to date.

Preschool Vision Screening
To address ambloypia, the preschool vision screening program was launched in 1999. Through the program, Lions screen children in their preschool years to catch the problem early. More than 1 million children have been screened, many referred for follow up care or eyeglasses. All results are tracked through state-wide databases, making follow up of referrals possible. This program is currently only the U.S. and Taiwan.