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Sightsavers has found that women talking to other women are likely to be particularly effective when it comes to encouraging the use of eye care services.

In Pakistan, a country where women are 30% more likely to be blind than men, Sightsavers supports a network of Lady Health Workers. These 100,000 village women go from door to door, encouraging women to seek treatment for eye conditions and other health problems.

Each Lady health Worker visits around 200 families a month to check for diseases such as TB, malaria, malnutrition and the eye diseases that have left more than 1.5 million people blind in Pakistan. Many of these families live in remote villages, too poor to pay the bus fare to see a doctor. As women in close-knit largely Muslim communities, the Lady health Workers are often welcomes into homes where a male doctor or nurse would be regarded with suspicion.

The same method of woman-to-woman motivation is used when it comes to encouraging blind women to take up services that could benefit them.

Jana Jagarana, a Sightsavers partner in Orissa, North East India, provides rehabilitation services to those who are blind, with a special focus on women.

Satyabati Choudhury, who runs the organisation, says: “Our main objective is to help and empower women and children, as well as marginalised people in the community. Because we’re trying to make women feel more empowered, 80% of our field workers are women. This is because women in the community are more likely to feel comfortable with another woman, and are therefore more likely to come forward and use the services on offer. The female field workers also act as role models for other women.”