A Miracle World: A Child Sees for the First Time Since Birth

The PBL (Prevention of Blindness) mobile team recently did an eye camp in Badakhshan province of northern Afghanistan. The team was touched by the great need of the people. Health care is not readily available and so people walk for hours or days to find treatment. The team was grateful to be able to help the people even though they had to walk for hours because their car was stuck in the mud due to flooding in the region. 

In the Ashkashim district, in the village of Bazgir, lives a five-year-old boy by the name of Ahmad Zai. His parents had three daughters before him and had high hopes for him. The family was very happy when their son was safely delivered in their home by an elderly lady. In remote areas of the country it is common for an elderly lady to deliver babies because of a lack of health facilities or trained midwives. But the time came, when the boy was two, that the family noticed he had a white spot on the center of both of his eyes. The family took him to the person in the village who practiced folk medicine and made a lot of traditional medicine for him, but it did not help him.

In May 2009, SERVE and AKHS decided to do an eye camp for the Ashkashim district to provide eye care services for this poor and marginalized people who are very far from health facilities such as eye care. Our MST (Mobile Screening Team) went to the Bazger village on the 4^th of May 2009 and did screening and found that Ahmad Zai suffered from congenital cataracts that he had from birth. The MST team referred the child to the MOT (Mobile Operation Team) to perform surgery on one of his eyes. After the surgery, the boy opened his eye and was very surprised that he could see. He pointed to the light and asked, “What is that?” And he pointed to a pen and other objects and asked what they were. His parents had tears in their eyes from happiness and prayed for the two organisations for providing eye care for the poor and marginalised community. They said: “It is a miracle for our child to see this world for the first time since his birth!”