The WHO received 1,265 film submissions from 119 countries for its inaugural ‘Health for All’ film festival. The videos explored current challenges in global health, such as healthcare in conflict zones and reaching remote communities.
The Health for All festival aims to highlight the volunteers and community health workers striving to ensure everyone has access to the health care they need.
Dr Tedros Adhanom, director general of the WHO, said: “The volume, quality and diversity of entries for the Health for All film festival far surpassed our expectations. I am incredibly encouraged by the appetite among film-makers around the world, both amateur and professional, for telling public health stories.”
Sightsavers’ film showcases our work reaching remote communities in Turkana county, Kenya, where trachoma trackers have been tracing the last remaining cases of the disease. Watch the film below:
Meet our mobile team of health workers saving sight across rural Kenya in this photo essay.
View the galleryTrachoma, an eye infection that begins like conjunctivitis, thrives in dry and unsanitary conditions and causes eyelashes to grow inwards and scratch against the eyeball. In remote locations where people live far from healthcare facilities, it can be difficult to get proper treatment. Many resort to homemade remedies, such as using ash on the eyes or pulling out the eyelashes to reduce the pain. In more severe cases the disease can lead to blindness.
Sightsavers has trained community health volunteers to seek out remote or nomadic communities and identify cases of the disease. A quick surgery lasting just 15-20 minutes can alleviate the agony of the disease in its later stages, while inexpensive antibiotics can cure the infection if it’s caught in the earlier stages.
Pop-up surgeries can be set up virtually anywhere – even in the Kenyan desert – so in communities where trachoma cases are found, patients can be operated on straight away.
Check out the competition’s other entries here.
Trachoma is the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, and is one of a group of conditions known as neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).
Learn moreThe Promise in Peril campaign culminated at the SDG summit with a declaration reaffirming commitments to achieving the global goals that explicitly references disability rights.
Dr Jalikatu Mustapha trained with Sightsavers between 2012 and 2016, becoming the only female ophthalmologist in the country.
Sightsavers’ education, research and policy teams will join the global education community at the UKFIET international education conference on 12-14 September in Oxford, UK.