In the remote waterways of Nigeria’s Niger Delta, where communities perch on stilts above oil-polluted waters and the nearest hospital requires hours of dangerous boat travel, blindness has long meant isolation. The Africa Cataract and Eye Foundation, led by Nigerian ophthalmologist Dr. Gabriel Mejuya Okorodudu, has partnered with the Cure Blindness Project to launch the 3-Rivers Project—an ambitious initiative targeting over one million people across the Ijaw, Itsekiri, and Ilaje communities of the Forcados-Escravos-Benin river systems.
The project addresses a stark reality: nearly 60% of cataracts in the Niger Delta are bilateral, meaning patients face complete blindness from a condition that requires only a simple surgery to cure. Rather than forcing patients to endure treacherous journeys to distant medical facilities, the partnership is establishing surgical centers directly within these riverine communities. Two centers—at Tsekelewu on the Olero Creek and Ogheye on the Benin River—are already operational, with plans to expand across additional tributaries by 2026.
The Cure Blindness Project brings three decades of global experience to this collaboration. Founded in 1995 as the Himalayan Cataract Project by Dr. Geoff Tabin and Dr. Sanduk Ruit, the organization has facilitated millions of surgeries, screenings, and treatments across 30 countries. Their model focuses on developing sustainable, high-quality eye care systems in underserved regions—precisely what the Niger Delta communities need.
Beyond surgery, the initiative employs outreach boats equipped as mobile clinics, working with traditional leaders and local councils to spread awareness about blindness prevention. The foundation plans to conduct over 3,000 surgeries and establish a permanent eye care training hub for local practitioners by 2026.
As Dr. Okorodudu told This Day newspaper: “We’ve always had the commitment, but now we can scale. We can train more local providers. We can equip more community surgical suites. We can reach more people.” His determination reflects the project’s broader mission—ensuring that geography and poverty no longer sentence anyone to preventable blindness in one of Nigeria’s most marginalized regions.
Read the full article from This Day newspaper: 3-Rivers Cataract Project: A Quiet Mission to Cure Blindness in the Niger Delta
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