Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors. According to World Health Organization (WHO), 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide: 246 million have low vision and 39 million are blind. It is estimated that 90% of the world's visually impaired are located in developing countries. Furthermore, blindness is very high in South Asian region, there are 15 million blind people reside in India, with an additional 52 million visually impaired. Similarly, 1.54 million people are estimated blind in Pakistan and 800,000 in Bangladesh. Whereas, in Africa there are 1.2 million Ethiopia are blind and 1 million adults are blind in Nigeria. Therefore, regional statistics indicates that 90% of blindness is located in developing countries.
The rural-urban distribution indicates that rural areas contain higher numbers of blindness then urban areas. The main reason behind the higher number of blindness among rural inhabitants could be urban biased policies by the central governments of the developing world. As Michael Lipton (1976) explains in his book ‘’Why Poor Stays Poor’’ is because central governments don’t allocate enough budget for rural areas due to elite pressure, those reside in urban areas of developing countries. Therefore, imbalance exists in all walks of life from education to health facilities among rural and urban inhabitants of the developing countries, where blindness is on rise. Thus, poor masses can not afford the facilities due to low income and lack of health facilities in the area. Consequently, they are forced to live as blind and stay away from education and employment, which turns into poverty-blindness cycle. This cycle is continuing situation whereby poor families entrapped in poverty for generations and lose the opportunity to make a better life.
It has also been observed that females have a significantly higher risk of having visual impairment than males. According to Women’s Eye Health Task Force (WEHTF), nearly two out of three people who are blind are women. This is because many eye problems are age related and women live longer than men, so they experience more age-related diseases. Moreover, some eye diseases are intrinsically more common in women like dry eye syndrome and other autoimmune diseases.
There are various polices have been proposed by the experts however, to reduce visual impairment, strategies targeting poor people are required on urgent basses. The research carried out by WHO indicates that globally, 80% of all visual impairment can be cured. There are number of tools has been proposed and implemented by national and international institutions in developing countries with the aid of NGOs and local bodies. Areas of progress over the last 20 years include governments establishing national programmes to prevent and control visual impairment, focus on provision of eye care services that are affordable and of high quality and massive awareness campaigns including school based education. This helping the poor blind masses to see the world with their own eyes and acquiring higher education, getting into work and ultimately, leading towards better living. Not only this, it will also contribute to increase the literacy and income rates at national level and bring out the country from this deprivation.
Al-Mustafa Welfare Trust (AMWT) has played vital role to fight against blindness in Pakistan since 1985. It has helped around 50,000 people to have free eye surgeries, most were women and elderly people. There are 1.5 million people got minor treatments through free eye camps.
AMWT have got 100 registered eye surgeons and well trained paramedical staff who are working on voluntarily basses every year at free eye camps. The main objective of AMWT free eye camps is to provide free eye care at the door step of the poor rural masses who can not afford the treatment due to low income and lack of health facilities and awareness.
In Feb-March 2012, AMWT aims to arrange approximately 167 free eye camps in various rural areas of all provinces of Pakistan. These camps will target 5000 blind people for free surgery where 250500 people will receive minor treatments and eye care.
It just costs £35 to provide free surgery to one blind person, whereas £1000 costs to set up one fully equipped free eye camp. AMWT can not accomplish this huge project without the generous support of its kind donors and sister organisations. Your generous contribution will enable to many blind people to see the world again with their own eyes. Free surgery will enable them to participate in daily activities and to join the prayers at masjid and to read the Quran. As Quran says that ‘’one who saves the life of one person is like to save the entire humanity’’. Therefore we would require your support to save the lives of blind people from poor countries.
By: Anam Jawad Lateef
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