ORBIS launched the Africa Initiative in 2009 to focus 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 children's long-term follow up and care can then be monitored throughout their lifetime.

ORBIS works with local partners to build their capacity to deliver accessible services to children by: facilitating the training of a paediatric eye care team, including a paediatrically trained ophthalmologist, anaesthetist, orthoptist, optometrist, nurse, vision technician and a manager on tertiary level fully equipping tertiary level units with a child-friendly atmosphere and surgical equipment and consumerables equipping secondary and primary community centres with the facilities to manage both screening and patient follow up developing public awareness campaigns to stimulate the up-take of available eye care services.

©Claire Louise Thomas

By using our extensive network of expert medical volunteers and integrating the ORBIS flagship tools such as Cyber-Site, the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital and fellowship training, ORBIS ensures highest international standard of training and development for our partner eye care teams. In 2011 ORBIS committed to developping ten Paediatric Eye Care Centres in the region with in the next ten years. To date state of the art Centres have been opened in Kitwe, Zambia and Durban, South Africa.