Vision Excellence Awards: Sencodri Njau

Based in Morogoro Region, working as Reginal Eye Coordinator Dr. Sencodri Njau is a dedicated, experienced cataract surgeon, providing seemingly tireless eye health services to the region and beyond.

Trained as Assistant Medical Officer in Opthalmology and cataract surgeon, Dr. Njau serves all ages regardless of the ability to pay. “If you ask me whether people should pay for eye health services, I would say no, because if people lose their sight, they won’t be able to access other improved services, so improvement should include affordable and sustainable eye care services”.

For the last 20 years, Dr. Njau has persisted in a working environment in a region which had no equipment and eye health services were luxuries. His professionalism, fair and transparent approach stands out.

His focus is always on the marginalized community; he always finds the opportunity to take specialized outreach to the most remote areas, just to make sure people with low income can get access to quality eye care services. In his free time, he searches for opportunities online and also where to find scholarship opportunities for eye care service providers in the region.

He spent 5% of his annual salary each year to buy the most needed ophthalmic equipment/consumable, just to make sure people get eye care services. He spares his time to work with project coordinators and officers in finding, analyzing, and interpreting eye health data to make informed decisions. He considers gender inequality a global pandemic, therefore, in outreaches women who need eye surgery get treated first. “Women of my community are overburdened with all kinds of work, if we don’t serve them first then men should be prepared to take over their duties”.