Caroline Harper: What if we eliminated one of the world's oldest diseases?
Caroline Harper: Co będzie, jeśli wyeliminujemy jedną z najstarszych chorób świata?
At Sightsavers, an international NGO, Caroline Harper leads efforts to eliminate avoidable blindness around the world and fight for equal rights. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
just for a moment,
instead of outwards,
a nie na zewnątrz.
the front of your eyeballs,
you went blind.
prowadzi do ślepoty.
to a person who has trachoma.
cierpiące na jaglicę.
from Zambia, he has trachoma.
z Zambii, choruje na jaglicę.
he's going to go blind.
that's passed from person to person
przenoszona przez ludzi
will scar your eyelids
powoduje blizny na powiekach,
and they turn inside out.
the contact with children.
in places like Ethiopia
like this around their necks,
zawieszone pęsety takie jak ta,
to pluck out their eyelashes.
temporary respite,
more vicious than before.
people in the world
because of trachoma.
as many as 200 million people
200 milionom osób.
of a wall of a tomb in Northern Sudan.
w Sudanie Północnym.
in a very remote village,
to take us down into a little tomb.
aby zabrał nas do małego grobowca.
there are tweezers next to it.
do you think that's trachoma?"
myślisz, że to jaglica?".
to the British Museum,
this is trachoma.
were painting pictures of trachoma
na ścianach grobowców jaglicę.
in that area today.
nadal panoszy się w tym regionie,
we know how to stop it.
community have all come together
jaglicą jednoczy się
that's not always the case
Coalition for Trachoma Control.
for Trachoma Control.
a strategy to fight it.
strategię walki z tą chorobą.
by the World Health Organization.
Światową Organizację Zdrowia.
powiek na dobrą stronę.
dostępnych środków znieczulających.
in somebody's front porch, if need be.
jeśli zajdzie taka potrzeba.
to be transported to the port in-country.
of community volunteers
with all that complex logistics.
w skomplikowanej logistyce.
has a pole like this.
different colors,
you should give somebody,
ile tabletek podać osobie,
in the UK and in the US.
w Wielkiej Brytanii i USA.
was a real problem in Georgia
eye hospital, Moorfields,
w Moorfileds, w Wielkiej Brytanii,
how important it is to wash their faces.
jest bardzo ważne.
build latrines,
budować latryny i uczymy je,
their animals from their living quarters
zmniejszania populacji much.
Sightsavers led an incredible program
stworzyli wspaniały program
Mapping Project.
to go district by district,
aby dotarli do wszystkich miejsc
of over two and a half million people.
in order to download the data.
żeby można było pobrać dane.
had a problem with trachoma.
ma problem z jaglicą.
"Well, does this strategy actually work?"
czy ta strategia działa?
that we've made to date.
they've already eliminated trachoma,
już pozbyły się jaglicy.
or are in the process of
have the money they need,
mają już potrzebne fundusze
to eliminate trachoma.
they don't have enough funding.
wystarczających funduszy.
unless they get more.
chyba że otrzymają ich więcej.
that the progress to date may stall.
postępy staną w miejscu.
to the Audacious ideas guys,
over the next four or five years
przez następne cztery czy pięć lat
that we can eliminate trachoma
the highest burden of the disease,
najbardziej dotknięte tą chorobą,
billion dollars' worth of donated drugs.
the impact that we'll have --
co dzięki nam może się zmienić.
in Ethiopia and Nigeria.
that are still red.
which are in conflict --
w których panują konflikty,
where it's very difficult to work.
w których trudno się pracuje.
the strategy and the map.
with the governments
that our program is coordinated
że nasz program jest skoordynowany
if we could do this?
gdybyśmy mogli to zrobić?
from the whole world.
na całym świecie.
I just want to share with you
się z wami podzielić
the founder of Sightsavers,
for the whole country,
w całym państwie,
this is a devastating disease
że ta niszczycielska choroba,
of individual people.
for as long as she could remember.
she'd had the operation.
jak ją poznałam miała operację.
transformed her life.
and she was free of pain.
ile się dało i przestało ją boleć.
not to be moved by her story.
to go blind in agony anymore.
tracił wzrok w męczarniach.
intractable problems in this world.
problemów trudnych do rozwiązania.
free from the fear of trachoma.
wolne od strachu o jaglicę.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Caroline Harper - Advocate for visually impaired peopleAt Sightsavers, an international NGO, Caroline Harper leads efforts to eliminate avoidable blindness around the world and fight for equal rights.
Why you should listen
Dr. Caroline Harper's ultimate goal is to see herself out of a job. She runs Sightsavers, an organization with global offices that strives to eliminate avoidable blindness and ensure that people with disabilities have equal rights. Up to 75 percent of sight loss can be cured or prevented, and her team hopes to achieve their goals so spectacularly that the organization is no longer needed.
Harper worked in the gas industry until 2002, before co-founding a management business that specialized on turnaround sales of energy companies. But during what she describes as a mid-life gap year, she visited a number of developing countries and felt drawn to international development. "My own family has a lot of blindness, so the mission of Sightsavers really resonated for me," she said. "I have now been its CEO for 13 years, and every year something more incredible happens. The best moments are when I visit some of the countries where we work, sit with people in their communities and realize that what we do has a massive impact. I am so lucky."
Harper is a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her work to protect the sight of people in developing countries. Sightsavers works with a range of partners and is supported by organizations such as The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust and UK aid through the UK government's Department for International Development.
Caroline Harper | Speaker | TED.com