It is horrific to see the plight of such individuals who are disabled or disadvantaged because of this uncorrected refractive error. In fact, Vision Aid Overseas, an INGO based in the UK reports that “670 million people worldwide (10% of the global population) suffer because they don’t have the right spectacles to achieve good vision.”[break]
I can imagine that there must be thousands of Nepalis living under similar circumstances for either they might not realize that they suffer from visual impairment or they simply don’t have the resources to do anything about it. For example, a 2009 study by A Sherchan, R P Kandel, M K Sharma, et al. concluded that, “Although the prevalence of blindness and visual impairment is lower than 10 years ago, particularly among women, correctable blindness due to cataract and refractive error (79.5% of blind people) remains a significant population health problem in Lumbini Zone and Chitwan District.” Therefore, correctable blindness is still prevalent in Lumbini Zone and Chitwan District alone; if the study was spanned across the entire country, the data might have been sadder still.
Illustration: Sworup Nhasiju
This is where we can help. We can help others access their right to sight. And what should motivate us further is data from VISION 2020 which claims that 80% of visual impairment is avoidable.
VISION 2020 is a joint program of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) that takes global initiative for the elimination of avoidable blindness.
Those of us who have accumulated enough spectacles over the years or know someone in the family-friends network who has spare and unneeded spectacles can actually go to some of the local spectacle stores and ask them if they can donate our unwanted specs to those who might be able to derive use out of them.
Donating unneeded spectacles is one of the easiest and the most effective ways to help someone less privileged than us. Think about it, most of us can afford to buy new spectacles if we accidentally break the pair or if we want a new look. However, as cited above, there are so many people not only in Nepal but also in other parts of the world who cannot afford to do so – they have to live with avoidable blindness. So getting ourselves motivated enough to give our old spectacles to someone with similar problem but a less fortunate fate should not be too hard. After all, who better than the eyeglass wearer to understand and appreciate just how valuable spectacles can be when you can’t see?
While there are counterclaims to the argument of donating spectacles, I can’t help but sympathize with those who support donating specs because the donations are most likely giving someone sight who doesn’t have it. Proponents of the anti-donation stand often suggest that donating spectacles are usually an expensive affair. Moreover, the donated specs may be unusable. Therefore, you’re paying so much money to essentially just mail garbage.
However, I would think that attempting to help is a more feasible strategy than not helping at all. Now I understand that there are numerous INGOs that work towards this issue, and while choosing to post your unneeded spectacles to these organizations may be an expensive affair, I would personally recommend that going to the nearest local specs shop might be the cheapest and effective method to address this.
Furthermore, what has become useless to us can potentially provide someone with sight. Think about it: a girl who never saw the blackboard clearly might be able to see better, the old man who could never comprehend the teeny newspaper fonts might be able to read better, the lady who had to squint her eyes to get the thread across the eye of the needle might be able to get her sewing done in minutes now: all this would be thanks to you!
The writer is student of Political Science at Thammasat University who enjoys exploring life and all that it has to offer.
Related story
Desperate search for missing girls as nearly 80 dead in Texas f...
