When the World Opened Its Eyes: Tanzania’s Journey Through the International Day of Sight

By Adonis Byemelwa

The morning air in Dodoma was thick with dust and hope. Beneath the white tents outside the regional hospital, mothers shaded their children with pieces of kitenge as queues stretched far into the sun. Nurses in crisp white coats called names, and volunteer doctors gently lowered trial lenses onto the faces of elders who had travelled from as far as Mpwapwa and Kondoa.

 Between the hum of voices and the blinking of eyes long accustomed to darkness, there was a quiet reverence. This was not just another health outreach; it was the International Day of Sight; a moment each October that reminds the world how fragile and precious vision truly is.

This year’s commemoration, held on October 10, 2024, still lingers in the national memory. On Azam TV the night before, Dr. Amani Mwakyembe, an ophthalmologist from Dar es Salaam, spoke with urgency: “If we keep waiting for patients to come to us, the backlog of untreated cataracts will double within a decade.”

 His colleague, Dr. Esther Msuya from Morogoro, added, “Children are now wearing spectacles as early as six. It’s not fashion—it’s necessity.” Their words resonated far beyond the studio, touching families who quietly struggle with the fading light in their homes.

According to national eye-care statistics, 8.2 million Tanzanians live with some form of visual impairment, and around 290,000 are completely blind. In semi-arid regions like Dodoma, cataracts and corneal infections are common, worsened by dust, heat, and scarce clean water.

One survey reported a 17.7 percent prevalence of cataract blindness, numbers that reveal not just disease, but distance: the distance between rural villages and clinics, between knowledge and care.

Blindness in Tanzania is not confined to the elderly. A rural study of 1,386 pupils found that 0.7 percent had bilateral poor eyesight and 1 percent had unilateral impairment. Teachers trained to use simple eye charts identified 80 percent of cases correctly, proving how awareness alone can shift the path of a child’s future. “Children cannot learn what they cannot see,” Dr. Msuya had reminded viewers, words that have since become a soft echo in classrooms and clinics alike.

In cities like Dar es Salaam and Arusha, organisations such as Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation Tanzania (CCBRT) continue to bridge that gap. During the 2024 commemoration, CCBRT doctors offered free screenings, distributed spectacles, and referred patients for cataract surgery. Hundreds were treated, yet the lines never seemed to shorten.

That image of endless queues beneath a rising sun captures the essence of the International Day of Sight: the quiet determination of a nation striving, year after year, to bring light where darkness has settled too long.

In the core of this effort are the teachers and specialists quietly building bridges where few imagine they can exist. Among them is Ahiadu Sangoda, a graduate of Tumaini University Makumira and now a senior official at the Ministry of Education in Dodoma. Her journey through the field of special education has been extraordinary.

Trained in Uganda, she mastered techniques for teaching children who are both deaf and blind, a field so specialized that even policy-makers struggle to understand its complexity. “When I guide a deafblind child’s hand to trace a letter,” she once reflected, “I am teaching patience, not just reading.” Her words reflect an education philosophy that transcends classrooms, reminding us that inclusion begins not with sympathy, but with skill.

At Patandi Teachers’ College in Arusha, silence has its own language. Inside its calm classrooms, trainee tutors learn Tadoma, a tactile communication method where deafblind learners place their fingers on a teacher’s lips or throat to feel the vibration of speech.

It’s a lesson in patience and humanity. One of its proud graduates, Ahiadu Sangoda, now a senior official in the Ministry of Education, often recalls that Patandi taught her more about compassion than any lecture ever could. “Every person,” she once said softly, “has a way to connect and contribute; you just have to find the rhythm that speaks to them.”

That same rhythm of resilience hums quietly through homes across Tanzania. My father-in-law, now eighty-five, lost his sight twenty-one years ago, yet lives with dignity and grace. He irons his clothes by touch, recognises voices with uncanny precision, and recites Bible verses from memory, chapter and verse.

When he murmurs, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” it sounds less like faith and more like strength woven into prayer. Watching him navigate his home, guided only by memory and sound, has changed how I understand dignity. It isn’t born from sight, but from the will to keep living fully in darkness.

Yet, despite such courage, blindness remains one of Tanzania’s most stubborn health challenges. The World Health Organization describes cataract surgery as one of the most cost-effective medical procedures in the world, but access remains limited.

In one study, 71 percent of blind patients declined cataract surgery, mostly out of fear, misinformation, or lack of transport. In some rural districts, surgical coverage is as low as 19 percent. These numbers are more than statistics; they are human lives paused in quiet despair, waiting for light that could easily return.

That is why, on October 10, when the white tents rose across Dodoma for the International Day of Sight, the air felt charged with something deeper than ceremony. Doctors in blue scrubs bent over slit lamps as patients queued for hours under the hot sun.

Banners fluttered with messages like “Eyes Matter” and “See the World, Don’t Let It Fade.” Students volunteered as guides, nurses taught patients how to clean spectacles, and elders held their breath as lenses clicked into place. For many, this was not a routine check-up—it was a chance to reclaim the world in colour and clarity.

Yet, as the day faded and tents came down, a harder question lingered: what happens next? Will rural clinics receive steady supplies of eyedrops and surgical tools? Will every school at least hang a basic eye chart on its wall? Even editors in newsrooms, often glued to bright screens for endless hours, quietly face their own battle, dry eyes, blurred vision, the unseen cost of chasing deadlines, reminding them, too, to take precaution.

Will policymakers in Dodoma see blindness as more than a charity issue and integrate eye health into the national system? On Azam TV, Dr. Amani Mwakyembe had warned with a measured voice, “The problem isn’t skill, it’s commitment.” His words still echo beyond the screens.

Blindness, after all, is rarely fate. It is often the consequence of neglect, the absence of follow-through, where empathy meets bureaucracy. In countries like Sweden and Japan, tactile pavements, audio crossings, and subsidised aids make life for the visually impaired not just bearable, but equal. In Tanzania, progress relies on the fragile determination of doctors, teachers, and NGOs who refuse to surrender. The pace may be slow, but the light spreads—one restored eye, one trained teacher, one reconnected soul at a time.

When I think back to that October morning, the murmur of patients, the cautious smiles of those seeing clearly after years of haze, I realise that vision is not just light entering the eye. It is empathy, imagination, and courage to keep looking, even when the world goes dim.

Tanzania’s journey toward universal eye health will not be easy. But if the spirit that filled those hospital grounds endures, then the nation is not only restoring sight, it is reclaiming vision, the kind that recognises every person as worthy of light. Because the deepest blindness is not the loss of sight, but the failure to truly see one another.