Nga's future is brighter thanks to Orbis

Women make up 70% of the healthcare workforce but hold only 25% of leadership positions. Cultural and gender biases, limited mentorship, and caregiving responsibilities often create barriers to their advancement. Orbis and our supporters are committed to addressing this disparity through initiatives like Women Leaders in Eye Health. The primary focus of which is to help tackle broader issues of access—112 million more women than men live with vision loss, including blindness.

Nga lives in a community where people, especially women, struggle to access the scarce health care that is available. But thanks to Orbis supporters and partners, Nga got the care she deserves.

Nga is one of five sisters, with her youngest sister only six months’ old. Nga’s eldest sister, now 19, left the family and was forced to marry at 13. Until recently, Nga had difficulty seeing what her teachers wrote on the chalkboard and had to copy her classmate’s notebooks to keep up. Like most children in her area, Nga had never received an eye exam—until Orbis supporters brought eye care to her region.

Since 2023, Orbis has been working closely with local partners in the Lai Chau province to provide equipment and comprehensive eye care training to reduce avoidable vision loss. Through the project, more than 400 teachers and school health staff have been trained to screen their students for vision problems, giving tens of thousands of children their first eye exam.

Nga was one of the 40,000 schoolchildren and 5,000 adults screened as part of this project. After a referral to Phong Tho District Health Center, Nga was officially diagnosed with astigmatism and given a pair of eyeglasses for free. When she first put them on, Nga exclaimed, “everything is super clear. It’s wonderful!”

With her repaired vision, Nga hopes to forge a new path for herself. “I want to become a kindergarten teacher,” she tells us, just like the teachers who helped save her own sight. She also has hopes of providing for her family, a dream she can turn into a reality with healthy sight, “I also wish I could earn money to build a bigger house for my family.” she told us.

We would like to wish Nga and all women and girls around the world, a happy International Women’s Day. With the help of our supporters and partners, we won’t stop working towards gender equity in eye health.