Organisation: Behind the Picture
Location: Sierra Leone
Photographer: Graham Coates

"I was part of a team conducting school vision screening at various schools within driving distance of our base for 2 weeks at Makeni, in Sierra Leone. On this day we were visiting Mayolor town about 14km away. We screened 274 children and 52 adults on this day, which included most of the teachers. On arrival at each school we would meet with the headmaster and senior teachers and explain our need for suitable buildings to undertake the screening process."

I was part of a team conducting school vision screening at various schools within driving distance of our base for 2 weeks at Makeni, in Sierra Leone. On this day we were visiting Mayolor town about 14km away. We screened 274 children and 52 adults on this day, which included most of the teachers. On arrival at each school we would meet with the headmaster and senior teachers and explain our need for suitable buildings to undertake the screening process. Inevitably this entailed rearranging one or two classrooms to suit our needs. One for carrying out the initial vision and eye health checks and another for performing a sight examination for those referred from the screening process. The image depicts one of the children having his vision checked using an E chart. It is not obvious in the photo but he has covered his left eye with a cupped hand and so we are checking how far down he can correctly identify the tumbling E letter orientation. By pointing his free hand up, down, to the left or right it becomes a very quick and accurate method of confirming an individuals unaided sight. In this case you may notice that some of his classmates have started to laugh. This is because he was the first child in the class to easily get to the bottom line with no effort, and all his friends were amazed at how confident he was.

I was volunteering on my 19th eye care project, most of them using my Optometry expertise with the UK charity Vision Aid Overseas. Increasingly I have balanced the Optometry aspects of the trips with taking images to highlight this much needed work. It is great to know that for at least some individuals we have been able to help. Good sight means finishing school, it means seeing well enough to mark homework, to count money at the market, to see your grand children properly. We should all have the right to sight and the means to have it assessed wherever we may live in the world.