Blindness Prevention - SERVE Afghanistan

H.E.L.P. - Health Education Ladies Program

Prevention of Blindness

Preventative Health

PBL - Prevention of Blindness

One of SERVE's important projects is the Prevention of Blindness project that was established in January 2000. Through the years, many of our workers were confronted with patients who became blind due to eye diseases that could have been prevented. That was how the idea was born for a prevention project.

SERVE's Activities:

Providing eye health care services for the rural population
Teaching health issues in order to prevent eye problems and blindness to clients as well as in the district schools

Disability? - When the word 'disability' is mentioned in connection with Afghanistan, most people automatically think of landmine victims and artificial limbs. Amputees, however, represent only about one-quarter of all Afghans with disabilities. About the same number suffer from restricted mobility due to polio, and nearly half of the country's disabled are blind, hearing impaired, mentally challenged, or multiply handicapped. The causes of disability are varied (warfare, insufficient basic health care, the tradition of intermarriage), but many are preventable. In the area of disability, SERVE has three projects: PBL (Prevention of Blindness), an integration project called E.M.A.D. (Enabling and Mobilising Afghan Disabled) and S.H.I.P. (SERVE's Hearing Impaired Project).

Isn't This A Miracle? - Assadulla and Farhad, seven and eight year old boys, live with their families in a village called Qala Tack in the Qarghai district of Laghman province. Both boys suffered from congenital cataracts. They are not the only ones. Assadulla and Farhad have at least 15 blind family relatives.

The two boys spent their lives in darkness and were learning braille taught by a SERVE teacher. When the PBL project started in their district, the two boys came to have their eyes checked.

The PBL doctor diagnosed cataracts and referred them to the ophthalmic center in Peshawar, Pakistan. Since the family is very poor, PBL took over the transportation and the operation costs and care during and after the operation. The day after the operation the doctor took away their eye patches and they realized there was light in the room! They were so surprised and they called their fathers: 'Father, father, I can see!' The fathers of the boys were overwhelmed with joy and said that they would celebrate this miracle within their village community in spite of their poverty.

Community Volunteers play an important role in our work. Volunteers visit the villages to survey the number of people with eye problems. They also inform the communities about PBL's programme and when the team will visit their village. PBL's team consists of two eye technicians, a nurse, a health teacher, an administrator and two community volunteers. They check the patients, give medicine if needed or refer them to an eye-hospital. The patients also receive a lesson about hygiene and other important subjects to prevent eye diseases.

"The value of eyes is incredible! What can you do when you can't see? That's why eye-care is so important! The communities are very happy with the PBL project SERVE is providing. Most people don't have the possibility to travel all the way to the city to visit the eye clinic. PBL is the only programme that is coming to the communities to give education and medical treatment." - Mr. Shiragha, PBL community volunteer