On October 31, 2023, IEF and its contractual partner, Integrative Sciences, LLC concluded a productive meeting. The meeting “What have we learned, Why it matters, and Where do we go from here” covered learning experiences from 58 grants supported by the USAID-funded Child Blindness Program over the past five years.
We explored priority interventions for refractive error, low vision and rehabilitation, retinopathy of prematurity, and surgery interventions (cataract, strabismus, injury, retinoblastoma, glaucoma, and cornea). We also reviewed critical cross-cutting themes on capacity building and human resources, Continuum of Care, innovation, integration, scale, sustainability, and gender.
We are grateful for the significant partnership with USAID and Integrative Sciences LLC and their Leadership. We extend our appreciation to the Integrative Sciences team members who were present in person for the meeting: Christopher Pearson, Maria Vance, Sean Kelly, and Nehad Fattah who joined remotely. We are also grateful to The IEF Technical Advisory Group who were present in person: John Barrows, Raheem Rahmathullah, Victoria Sheffield, Caira Grey-Johnson, and Gillian Cochrane joined the meeting remotely.
(Photo L-R, Christopher Pearson, Raheem Rahmathullah, Maria Vance, Victoria Sheffield, John Barrows, Sean Kelly)
We are all very proud of the accomplishments - more than 5 million children screened, 214,000 pairs of eyeglasses provided, >405,000 treated, >17,000 surgeries performed, and >38,000 service providers trained. But more than numbers, the past five years have generated tremendous learning and knowledge that will improve future programming.