Providing Eye Care Amid the Tea Leaves in Bangladesh

That includes insufficient eye health care resources in tea-growing regions, which leaves tea pickers and their families vulnerable to preventable or treatable vision loss.

Orbis International has been working in Bangladesh since 1985 providing eye care and eye care training for communities around the country. With assistance from our generous supporters, we recently teamed up with local eye care partner, Nayan, to address the eye health issues of tea garden workers and their families in one of the country’s traditional tea-growing areas.

Bangladesh, one of the world's top tea producers, is home to tea estates mainly located in the northeastern districts of Sylhet, Moulvibazar, Habiganj, Panchagarh and Chattogram (formerly Chittagong). Sylhet, where the Orbis-Nayan project took place, is home to the oldest and largest tea garden in the Indian subcontinent.

Among the more than 4 million people employed in Bangladesh’s tea industry, at least 300,000 are gardeners who do labor-intensive tasks such as plucking tea leaves. Three-quarters of these workers are women, and many belong to indigenous communities whose ancestors were brought to tea estates as laborers.

Housing provided by tea estates is often substandard, lacking basic amenities like clean water, sanitation and electricity. Access to quality education for children is limited, which perpetuates a cycle of poverty. And a shortfall in healthcare resources leads to poor health outcomes, exacerbated by the physically demanding nature of tea-picking, as well as exposure to pesticides and other chemicals on the plantations.

While the Bangladesh government regulates the tea industry, enforcement of labor laws is weak, and workers have limited bargaining power to negotiate better wages and conditions.

Tea workers in Bangladesh are among the lowest paid employees in the country. Their wages for full-time work — typically 120-170 BDT (or $1.40-$2.00 USD) — hover around the poverty line, and sometimes below it. They struggle to meet basic costs and face difficult working and living conditions.

Housing provided by tea estates is often substandard, lacking basic amenities like clean water, sanitation and electricity. Access to quality education for children is limited, which perpetuates a cycle of poverty. And a shortfall in healthcare resources leads to poor health outcomes, exacerbated by the physically demanding nature of tea-picking, as well as exposure to pesticides and other chemicals on the plantations.

While the Bangladesh government regulates the tea industry, enforcement of labor laws is weak, and workers have limited bargaining power to negotiate better wages and conditions.

Orbis teamed up with Nayan in October 2023 to address the eye health issues of tea garden workers and their families in Sylhet division, a first-ever effort to offer such care to this population. The project ran until September 2024 providing community eye screening and delivering free glasses, medication and surgeries to children and adults who needed them.

Orbis and Nayan staff trained a team of community eye care workers who went house-to-house performing eye screenings and reporting their results to program staff, who delivered follow-up care or referred those needing more serious intervention to the local hospital. The project provided 707 free cataract surgeries, transforming the lives of tea workers living with vision problems. “You are like a god to me,” said one of these patients, Pobi, a 60-year-old tea picker who underwent surgery for bilateral cataracts. “Because of you, I can see properly.”

Gallery: Transforming lives with eye care

A previous study by Orbis and eye care partner Clearly published in the Lancet Global Health Journal showed that improved eyesight can lead to a 32% increase in productivity. The study of 750 tea pickers on plantations in Assam, India, demonstrated that eye care interventions in this community increase women’s earnings, reduce poverty and improve children’s health and well-being.

Thanks to the Orbis community, thousands of people in this underserved region of Bangladesh can look forward to a future of healthy sight and higher earnings.

With your continued support, tea workers can make a decent income, children can learn and play, and people of all ages can access the quality health care they need.