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Wednesday, 04 April 2018 12:32

While interacting with the communities in rural Eastern Cape where we are based, we noticed that no children in the schools were wearing spectacles. Could it be, that in rural communities sight amongst children is 20/20?

We began a programnme of sytematically visiting each of the 127 schools servicing the Zithulele community and surrounds, and to date have screened close to 10,000 schoolgoing children for visual impairment.

While not many have been found to be visually compromised, those we HAVE discovered have been given free prescription spectacles to level the learning playing field. It is exceptionally rewarding for us to know that these young lives now have the equal opptunities to progress their education and realise their full potential.

It is one thing to perform cataract surgery on an elderly person and restore their sight, but to enable a young person in the prime of their life to develop their full potential, is particularly satisfying.

This precious one burst into tears as her spectacles were fitted, because for the first time in her life she could focus on her surroundings!