20/05/2026
The project “The relevance of sight” is intended as a long-term pathway evolving toward full sustainability and local autonomy:
· it was launched in 2024 through the first vision screenings and a mapping of the community’s needs;
· in 2025, the initiative became fully operational with the delivery of eyeglasses to the patients examined the previous year, transforming diagnosis into a real and tangible benefit that brought meaningful change to people’s daily lives.
To ensure sustainable continuity into the future and promote an active clinical role within the community, the project aims to train a local healthcare professional who will become a permanent point of reference in Ndiassane, carrying out screenings and assessing and managing the population’s needs throughout the year, in preparation for the visits conducted by our external missions.
In line with the values embraced by COSA OdV, the field activities were organized through a valuable synergy combining professional expertise with sensitivity to local culture and needs; this approach makes it possible to provide interventions that are attentive to beneficiaries while fostering increasingly active involvement of the community.
On Monday, May 18, at 8:30 in the morning, our day begins in Ndiassane, as we continue the work started during the 2024 mission that launched the project “The relevance of sight”, a vision screening initiative created with the aim of guaranteeing a fundamental right - eye health - by providing increasingly stable access to prevention and ophthalmic care in a context where access to healthcare is often a difficult privilege to obtain.
As soon as we arrived, we were immediately met by a long line of people waiting, even before the activities had begun; it was a powerful image, one that clearly reflects how real and widespread the need for ophthalmological care is within the community.
During the day, 48 examinations were carried out. Only 9 people could not receive a prescription for eyeglasses due to the presence of eye diseases such as cataracts, which require different treatment pathways. The patients examined were mostly adults, with vision problems linked to environmental factors, strong exposure to sunlight, and hygiene and nutritional conditions that are not always adequate, all of which can affect eye health over time.
Each examination also became a moment of education and awareness: every patient was carefully informed about how to use the prescribed glasses correctly, the importance of wearing them on a daily basis, and the role of prevention through the use of sunglasses.
Restoring clear vision to an adult in a rural context means restoring his ability to work, to be independent, and to support his family. Sight is synonymous with autonomy and dignity.
Among the many encounters of the day, one remains particularly striking. A young man who had never had the opportunity to undergo an eye examination, despite having been living for some time with an evident visual impairment. When he tried on a trial pair of glasses with the correct prescription for the first time, his reaction was immediate: astonishment, emotion, and then a smile that is hard to forget. In that moment, the meaning of the project “ The relevance of sight” became clear without the need for words: restoring not only clear vision, but also autonomy and dignity.
Thus, the day came to an end, leaving us with the awareness of having carried forward a process that began in 2024, which in 2025 found its first concrete implementation, and which today continues with the goal of making it increasingly stable and continuous over time.
Today, Tuesday, May 19, preventive and follow-up examinations are mainly dedicated to school groups.
A special thanks goes to Simona Guarini, optician, who truly makes all the difference. Thanks to our supporters: both their dedication, and extraordinary empathy make the project much more than a series of medical check-ups—it is a human journey that is concretely changing lives in Ndiassane.
