Helen Keller International (HKI)

Currently 1 in 7 people worldwide are blind or living with some form of vision loss yet an incredible 90% of vision loss is preventable or treatable. Helen Keller intl partners with communities and local health networks to improve their ability to provide high-quality eye health services to children and adults without access, supporting 157,000 people globally last year alone. By training, equipping, and providing ongoing support to clinicians, we can preserve or restore a person's vision, giving them greater potential to learn, form friendships, earn a better living, and remain safe. In 13 countries around the world, Helen Keller is delivering vision-protecting vitamin a to millions of children, staving off blindness and building immune systems. In the united states, we partner with schools and community-based organizations in urban centers where some of the most extreme health disparities exist to provide free-of-charge vision screenings and, if needed, no-cost prescription eyeglasses and medical treatments to students and vulnerable adults. In 2023, we screened the vision of nearly 114,000 individuals and provided eyeglasses to 67% of those diagnosed with refractive error.

Neglected tropical diseases including blinding trachoma, lymphatic filariasis, river blindness, snail fever, and intestinal worms impact more than 1 billion people globally. These mainly parasitic, viral, or bacterial diseases that can cause a host of painful physical disabilities, lost economic opportunities, and social stigma are most prevalent in lower income countries that lack adequate healthcare. Helen Keller intl partners with local leaders and communities to prevent, treat and eliminate these neglected diseases. During 2023 alone, Helen Keller worked with ministries of health to treat more than 33.5 million individuals with medication for at least one of these five diseases in six african countries (burkina faso, cameroon, guinea, mali, niger, nigeria and sierra leone), contributing greatly to national efforts towards their control and elimination. Helen Keller is also involved in morbidity management and disability prevention related specifically to trachoma and lymphatic filariasis and is working to build the capacity of national government and partner organizations in this area in five african countries (mali, niger, nigeria, sierra leone, and tanzania). The combination of these efforts has led to the great success of mali eliminating trachoma as a public health problem in 2023, with other countries also making progress toward elimination.

Today, as many as 783 million people go to bed hungry every night, obliterating the progress made globally since the early 2000's, thanks to the ongoing impact of covid-19, climate crises, and conflicts in ukraine and around the world. Combined, they make food unaffordable and nutritious food unattainable for far too many families. Children are at greatest risk their growing bodies deprived of the nutrition they so desperately need to develop, grow, and thrive. Helen Keller intl partners with governments, communities, community health workers and community organizations in africa and asia to reach infants and young children as well as their mothers and other vulnerable family members with training on farming, breastfeeding support, immune-building vitamin a, assessment and treatment of malnutrition and under-nutrition, and more. In 2023 we worked with governments and other partners in thirteen african countries (burkina faso, cameroon, cote d'ivoire, democratic republic of congo, guinea, kenya, mali, mozambique, niger, nigeria, senegal, sierra leone, and tanzania) to reach more than 35 million children under five years of age with two doses of vitamin a supplements. We also ensured good nutrition for nearly 3.5 million children and adults through detection and treatment of malnutrition, farming tools and education, maternal healthcare, and large-scale food fortification in several countries across africa (burkina faso, nigeria, and senegal). We estimate having reached more than 2.1 million families with better access to micronutrient-rich foods since we first began supporting these approaches more than three decades ago.