02. Who are we?
ORBIS is a non-profit organisation dedicated to saving sight worldwide. ORBIS provides the tools, training and technology necessary for local partner hospitals to assess their needs and develop workable and lasting solutions to the tragedy of unnecessary blindness. By building their long-term capabilities, ORBIS helps its partner institutions take action to provide quality eye care services that are affordable, accessible and sustainable.
ORBIS uses flagship tools such as the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital (an an innovative mobile ophthalmic training hospital onboard a DC-10 airplane), Cyber-Sight (an online telemedicine mentoring and learning resource), and over 450 expert medical volunteers, to bring the highest standard of eye care and training to our partners in developing countries. Through these, and our long-term country programmes we are working towards a world where no one goes blind unnecessarily.
Since 1982, ORBIS has worked in 88 countries, enhanced the skill of over 260,000 health care professionals and helped establish services that have provided quality eye care to more than 12 million people.
ORBIS launched the Africa Initiative in 2010, it focuses on developing a comprehensive model for managing avoidable childhood blindness in Sub-Saharan Africa. The model builds capacity within primary and secondary levels of local healthcare systems to identify children with complex sight problems and then refer them to specialised child-friendly tertiary facilities. This ensures these children’s long-term follow up and care can then be monitored throughout their lifetime. ORBIS is currently developing paediatric ophthalmic centres in Zambia, South Africa and Ethiopia.
