Eye Sight

Knights of the Blind

Lions and Leos save sight. Since Helen Keller challenged Lions to become “Knights of the Blind” in 1925, we have improved eye health and eye care for hundreds of millions of people around the world. Today, 80% of vision impairments are preventable or curable, so our service is more important than ever before. Lions and Leos screen vision, educate our communities, build clinics and support the blind and visually impaired through assistive technology and vocational training programs. We work to preserve the precious gift of sight for the world.

Through efforts such as these, Lions have gained worldwide recognition for our work to improve sight and prevent blindness. Our members around the world are also actively involved in:

Recycling eyeglasses at 18 centers worldwide.

Supporting Lions Eye Banks that provide eye tissue for sight-saving surgeries.

Screening the vision of hundreds of thousands of people every year.

Preventing blindness by providing treatment to those at risk of losing their vision.

For nearly 100 years, our members have worked on projects designed to prevent blindness, restore eyesight and improve eye health and eye care for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Lions volunteer to take part in sight projects that have:

Saved the sight of more than 15 million children by providing eye screenings, glasses and other treatments through Sight for Kids.

Established or strengthened pediatric eye care centers that have helped more than 120 million children.

Helped halt the spread of trachoma in Ethiopia by providing 10 million doses of the sight-saving drug azithromycin annually.

Prevented serious vision loss for more than 30 million people worldwide.

Improved eye care for 100 million people by training more than 650,000 eye care professionals and building 315 eye hospitals.

Distributed more than 147 million treatments for river blindness.

Provided nearly 8 million cataract surgeries.

Vaccinated 41 million children in Africa against measles – a leading cause of childhood blindness.

Since 1990, Lions have raised US$415 million through two SightFirst fundraising campaigns to help provide vision for all.