Our eye clinic in Burkina Faso

Since 2008, the Silhouette Group has been sponsoring an eye clinic in northern Burkina Faso, providing financial support for the ophthalmologists and other medical specialists who work there. The Silhouette Group donates funding as well as eyewear and surgical equipment, for example.

The two people who initiated this project, Bettina Hochwimmer (Silhouette Group) and Ulrike Nesser (ophthalmologist), regularly visit the ophthalmic surgeons at the clinic. They train the doctors and staff and support them in their everyday work. They also do eye tests at the local school.

The eye clinic can perform more than 400 operations every month and can treat more than 70 patients every day. The planned completion of this "help for self-help" project in 2022 has been called off and postponed indefinitely.

“We cannot wind up this humanitarian project in 2022 as planned," says Bettina Hochwimmer, who is a retired master optician from the Silhouette Group. We have grown very fond of the local people, and they still need our support. In particular, there are a lot of children who live here, and we don’t want to let them down.”