Caroline Harper: What if we eliminated one of the world's oldest diseases?
Caroline Harper: I si eliminéssim una de les malalties més antigues del món?
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,
cap endins en comptes d'enfora,
the front of your eyeballs,
you went blind.
us aniríeu tornant cecs.
to a person who has trachoma.
a les persones amb tracoma.
from Zambia, he has trachoma.
té tracoma.
he's going to go blind.
that's passed from person to person
que passa de persona a persona
will scar your eyelids
ferides a les parpelles
and they turn inside out.
i es pleguen cap endins.
the contact with children.
amb els nens.
in places like Ethiopia
like this around their necks,
penjades al coll,
to pluck out their eyelashes.
temporary respite,
un descans temporal
more vicious than before.
més fortes que abans.
people in the world
de persones al món
because of trachoma.
a causa del tracoma.
as many as 200 million people
uns 200 milions de persones
of a wall of a tomb in Northern Sudan.
d'una tomba al nord del Sudan.
in a very remote village,
per una vila remota
to take us down into a little tomb.
a una petita tomba.
there are tweezers next to it.
do you think that's trachoma?"
que això és tracoma?"
to the British Museum,
this is trachoma.
were painting pictures of trachoma
in that area today.
en aquesta àrea avui en dia.
we know how to stop it.
és que sabem com parar-la.
community have all come together
s'ha ajuntat
that's not always the case
for Trachoma Control.
pel Control del Tracoma.
a strategy to fight it.
una estratègia per combatre'l.
by the World Health Organization.
la parpella endinsada.
in somebody's front porch, if need be.
de qualsevol casa, si escau.
to be transported to the port in-country.
fins al port del país.
of community volunteers
de voluntaris de la comunitat
with all that complex logistics.
amb les dificultats logístiques.
has a pole like this.
tenen un pal com aquest.
different colors,
amb diferents colors,
you should give somebody,
(rentar la cara).
in the UK and in the US.
al Regne Unit i als EUA.
was a real problem in Georgia
era un gran problema a Geòrgia
eye hospital, Moorfields,
hospital oftalmològic Moorfields
how important it is to wash their faces.
com és d'important rentar-se la cara.
(ambient)
build latrines,
a construir latrines
their animals from their living quarters
de les zones on viuen
Sightsavers led an incredible program
va dirigir un programa increïble
Mapping Project.
de Mapes del Tracoma.
to go district by district,
que anessin districte a districte
of over two and a half million people.
de dos milions i mig de persones.
in order to download the data.
per descarregar els arxius.
had a problem with trachoma.
problemes amb el tracoma.
"Well, does this strategy actually work?"
funciona aquesta estratègia?"
that we've made to date.
que hem fet fins ara.
they've already eliminated trachoma,
que han eliminat el tracoma,
or are in the process of
have the money they need,
tenen els diners que necessiten,
to eliminate trachoma.
they don't have enough funding.
no tenen suficients fons.
unless they get more.
a no ser que n'obtinguin més.
that the progress to date may stall.
que el progrés s'aturi.
to the Audacious ideas guys,
amb els nois d'Audacious,
over the next four or five years
en els propers quatre o cinc anys
that we can eliminate trachoma
the highest burden of the disease,
l'índex més alt de la malaltia,
billion dollars' worth of donated drugs.
de dòlars en donacions de medecines.
the impact that we'll have --
mostra l'impacte que tindríem...
in Ethiopia and Nigeria.
Etiòpia i Nigèria.
that are still red.
encara en vermell.
which are in conflict --
països en guerra...
where it's very difficult to work.
on és difícil treballar.
the strategy and the map.
with the governments
that our program is coordinated
que coordinen el programa
if we could do this?
from the whole world.
I just want to share with you
the founder of Sightsavers,
de milió en milió
for the whole country,
de tot el país,
this is a devastating disease
és una terrible malaltia
of individual people.
de les persones.
for as long as she could remember.
des que recordava.
she'd had the operation.
abans de conèixer-la.
transformed her life.
and she was free of pain.
i ja no sentia dolor.
not to be moved by her story.
amb la seva història.
to go blind in agony anymore.
es torni cec amb dolor.
intractable problems in this world.
hi ha molts problemes intractables.
free from the fear of trachoma.
poden créixer sense por al tracoma.
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