73 year old Philemon lived in fear, the slightest sound or touch was enough to put him over the edge, he was as jumpy as a meerkat because he could not see. It was only Anna his wife that could put him at ease when we tested his eyes, she had to softly whisper in his ear all the way. Man, the joy on his face when he could see Anna's face for the 1st time in 19 years. It brought involuntary streams of tears to the teams eyes. 80% of blindness is preventable....
90% of blind people live in poor communities, 80% of blind people are over the age of 50. According to a recent BBC Health report global blindness will triple over the next 30 years, unless more is done towards the provision of primary eye care. In South Africa alone there are in excess of 6 000 000 people in desperate need of primary eye care, living in underserved communities.
Among the MAIN causes of blindness the single largest contributor is Uncorrected Refractive Error (URE) but there is hope because this is exactly what we address by taking primary eye care to the people who need it the most with our container and mobile teams and clinics.
The long-term impact will be the eradication of blindness in Southern Africa and eventually the world!
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
