Save 50,000 Pakistani children from blindness

CURRENT PROGRESS OF THE PROJECT

JANUARY, 2015 TO MARCH, 2015

Children in all regions of the world are affected by a range of eye diseases and conditions, some of which can lead to permanent visual impairment in childhood, or later in life. Many of these conditions are preventable or treatable. Interventions are available for most of the causes of childhood blindness and much can be done through the primary health care program by strengthening the mother child health component to include early detention and referral of children with eye problems. There are many causes of visual impairment but uncorrected refractive errors (URE) is the leading cause of visual impairment accounting to 42% of visual impairment worldwide. URE is the second leading cause of Blindness accounting to around 13% of blindness globally. According to WHO, an estimated 153 million people suffer from uncorrected distance refractive errors out of which 8 million are blind and 145 million have significant distance visual impairment. An estimated 12 million children (age 5 to 15) are visually impaired due to refractive errors.

The school eye health program team of Khyber Eye foundation delicately working and visiting school of remote areas where eye health facilities specially for poor students are not available. The project team so far visited 55 schools and screened out 27282 students 895 teachers were trained to carry out vision testing of each and every students, out off 3252 students 1360 were diagnosed as refractive error and were issued glasses free of cost.

The story of a young boy who had refractive error and how his life changed after, he was issued glasses by the project team.

 PICTURE 

Naimaullah is a student of class 1 and lives in a small village of charsadda, and studying in GPS major kalay, primary school. Naimatullah belongs to a very poor family, as his father is a laborer and has meager source of income, and supporting and supporting his 6 family members. Naimatullah off and on complained to his teachers as well as to his father for his vision problem and was finding difficulties while reading / noting down notes from black board, but his father could not afford to take him to the Doctor. The project team of Khyber eye foundation visited his school and screened out Naimatullah with refractive error. Before refraction his vision was CF close to eye (both eyes), after refraction and issue of glasses his vision came to 6/18 both eyes.

Khyber eye foundation is planning to visit schools in far flung areas with a view to provide eye care facilities to unprivileged and poor students free of cost, and also request our donors to donate maximum so that maximum poor students are benefited as young children are the future of any nation.

Raised:                                     $ 2,253

Remaining:                                $ 47,247