Restoring Eyesight to Children in Africa

Dear Donors,

Each quarter, we screen hundreds of children across vulnerable communities in the Western Cape. Most of our interventions are straightforward: a prescription, a pair of glasses.. But occasionally, a case reminds us why this work reaches far beyond the corrective lens.

This is one of those cases.

During a routine screening, we encountered a child who had been living with blindness in one eye for years, the result of an accident in early childhood. In his community, as in many of the communities we serve, awareness of eye health was limited. He had not been taken for medical care at the time of the injury, and the damage progressed drastically, without treatment, a name or a diagnosis.

We took him to see an ophthalmologist for a thorough assessment. The outcome was difficult: the blindness was permanent. There was nothing to be done for that eye.

What happened next, we did not anticipate.

His response was not anger, and it was not sadness.

He just encouraged children around him and urged them to look after their eyes and he did it with a smile on his face, jokingly advising them to "eat much carrots."

A child who had just received permanent news, redirecting that moment toward others. Not asking for sympathy. Asking other children to protect what he could not get back.

We do not share this story for its sadness. We share it because it illustrates exactly what is at stake when children grow up without access to basic eye health education. The accident that cost him his sight was not unusual. The lack of early intervention that followed was not unusual either. In many of the schools we visit, this is still the norm.

We showed up to help him. He ended up helping us remember why we do this.