{"id":9361,"date":"2026-05-13T22:04:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T16:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/?p=9361"},"modified":"2026-05-13T22:05:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T16:35:51","slug":"giving-eye-sight-a-fulfilling-seva","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/2026\/9361\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving eye sight, a fulfilling seva"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

April 2026, Kenya<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Volunteers from Embracing the World, in collaboration with the Spanish NGO, Visio Sense Fronteres recently completed a cataract eye surgery camp in Iten, Kenya. Over the course of a week the team successfully completed 235 surgeries restoring the sight to local villagers in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dr Isabel is a long-time devotee of Amma from Spain and the head of Visio Sense Fronteres. In 2008, Amma told her she should go to Kenya and do eye camps and surgeries. She has now been going all over Africa, regularly conducting camps since 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to participate on this most recent camp in Iten, Kenya with Dr Isabel and her team. As soon as we arrived at the Iten County Referral Hospital, all the equipment and supplies were immediately set up and the cataract surgeries got underway. That afternoon itself, the team performed 19 cataract surgeries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For the rest of the week, the team arrived at the clinic by 8am, and began reviewing the patients from the day before and then starting surgeries for the new patients by 10 am. This would continue without a break until 10 pm each night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team consisted of Dr Tomas and Dr Jose who were the ophthalmologists performing the eye surgeries and 2 scrub theatre assistants, Dr Laura and Nurse Ivana. Ms Leyre was the theatre coordinator and dealt with the running of the operation theatre. All of these people had taken time from their own busy lives, using their holidays to do seva for the patients of Iten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were local staff from Nairobi who came to help at the camp, which included nurses and helpers from Iten Hospital for the organisation of patients, translation and communication and general patient care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Isabel and another optician, Dr Rafa oversaw reviewing all the pre-selected patients from the local team. They would decide if surgery was possible. They would then put tape on each patients\u2019 forehead above the affected eye and mark it with an \u2018f\u2019 or an \u2018e\u2019 (this was the type of machine that would need to be used) and also a number which was their place in the queue. Some patients had a \u2018?\u2019 applied which meant they needed further assessment to see if they could benefit from the surgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The average age of patients was over 60 years old with some in their 40\u2019s and 50\u2019s. Cataracts, are cloudy, opaque areas that develop in the normally clear lens inside the eye, obstructing light and resulting in blurred, hazy, or reduced vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Primarily a result of aging, they typically develop slowly after age 60-65 due to protein breakdown, causing symptoms like fading colours, glare, and poor night vision. Surgery is the only effective treatment. Without this surgery these people have very limited hope, with reduced mobility, inability to work and provide for their families. But after the surgery their sight is completely restored and their quality of life greatly improved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the surgical preparation, the team was getting ready to operate on a local 8-year-old boy. Unfortunately, he had dangerously low oxygen levels and it turns out he was suffering from pneumonia. Because of the timely diagnosis and intervention of the medical team, he was admitted to the local Emergency Room where he was treated with oxygen and IV antibiotics. We visited him on our last day and he was much better and recovering from pneumonia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the youngest patients to receive the surgery was a 17-year-old named Judith. She had cataracts in both eyes which had come about due to poorly controlled diabetes. She had lost vision in 1 eye a year before and 1 eye a few months prior to the eye camp. She could only see shapes and shadows and was unable to walk without the assistance of her father. She had her left eye done one day and the second eye done the next day. After the surgeries she was able to walk unassisted. She and her father were both beyond happy that she had regained her vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a nurse and a photographer my role was a mixture of both.
I was documenting everything and also spent some time scrubbed (sterile) assisting the surgeries and helping with the general patient care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The week was full of inspiration and magic. The team who had come in service from Spain were awe-inspiring. All of them were so full of love and energy and commitment. We were working roughly 14 hours every day and everyone did it with enthusiasm and love. It was inspiring to be around such compassion and love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This had a direct impact on the patients. At first, the patients and their families were very reserved. A mixture of fear, distrust and apprehension. The first day there were not many smiles, but by the end of the week, all the patients were smiling, laughing and hugging us and wanting photos with us all. It was such a beautiful experience to see them open up when they realised the team was there to help them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the local nurses shared that during this week, he had learned from our team how to be more caring and compassionate. He said he was inspired by witnessing everyone care for his people of Iten in such a compassionate and dignified way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Wisley Rotich, the Governor of Elgeyo Marakwet County, came to visit the camp twice that week. He was also touched to see how the dedication and compassion of the volunteers not only brought vision back to those who could not see, but also smiles to their faces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone once told me, that when Amma visited Africa, she remarked that she didn\u2019t want to leave, because she felt there was so much poverty there \u2026 so much opportunity to serve with love the people who have so much suffering. Upon departing at the end of the camp, I fully understood Amma\u2019s words and I felt the same way. I hope I am blessed to be able to return in the future and do more seva there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Kirti Collyer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

see more photos..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April 2026, Kenya Volunteers from Embracing the World, in collaboration with the Spanish NGO, Visio Sense Fronteres recently completed a cataract eye surgery camp in Iten, Kenya. Over the course of a week the team successfully completed 235 surgeries restoring the sight to local villagers in the area. Dr Isabel is a long-time devotee of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[312,645],"class_list":["post-9361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seva","tag-kenya","tag-seva"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/files\/2026\/05\/26eye-28.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9361"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9388,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9361\/revisions\/9388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}