LCIF approved 12 SightFirst grants for US$1.74 million in May. The grants will help hundreds of thousands of people in nine nations preserve their sight or have their vision restored.

The grants fund cataract surgeries, upgrade Lions’ eye hospitals, expand ophthalmic training programs and control eye disease such as onchocerciasis ("river blindness").

The largest grant was for US$858,000 to conduct a cataract screening and surgery campaign in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda (MD 411). 19,000 surgeries will be done in one year. The grant continues the work of SightFirst in MD 411. In recent years, about half of all cataract surgeries done in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are thanks to SightFirst.

The second largest grant was for US$272,629 to control river blindness in Cameroon. The grant will protect 155,623 people in 411 villages in the South Province from river blindness by providing Mectizan treatments over three years.

Partnering with the Carter Center, SightFirst has delivered more than 55 million Mectizan® treatments in 11 countries in Africa and the Americas since 1996. River blindness is caused by microscopic parasitic worms that enter the body from the bites of black flies that swarm around rivers. In Cameroon, a nation of 16 million people and 230 ethnicities, SightFirst supports two ongoing onchocerciasis projects in five provinces.

A grant of US$48,849 will provide equipment for the ophthalmic nurses training program at Ras Desta Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. SightFirst initially supported training of ophthalmic nurses in Ethiopia in 1994.

Four grants will upgrade Lions’ eye hospitals in India. For example, a grant of US$108,827 for Dharmavaram Lions Eye Hospital will help purchase new equipment and a 33-seat outreach screening vehicle, enabling the hospital to reduce the area’s cataract backlog.

Six grants will support cataract campaigns in six countries: Brazil, Kenya, Peru, Swaziland, Tanzania and Uganda. The campaigns will support 23,400 cataract surgeries for the indigent blind.

SightFirst is a global initiative of LCIF and Lions to prevent blindness and restore sight. LCIF has approved 672 grants in 79 countries for a total of US$156 million.

Grants are approved three times a year by the SightFirst Advisory Committee, composed of Lions international leaders and some of the world's foremost blindness prevention experts.