Education

UWR: 39 children with eye conditions receive support from Blissful Sight For Kids NGOs

• By Digme Kantayir
• December 18, 2018
• 35

The Blissful Sight For Kids Project has handed 39 eye lenses to school children in the Wa Municipality after successful screening of 361 school children at the municipal education secretariat a week ago.

The affected students received their lenses beaming with smiles and jiggles, and now hopeful that the lenses will help improve their  vision during studies at night.

Five (5) year old Ms Cindy of St. Aiden Anglican KG School would now study with no difficulty after receiving a pair of medicated lense from Bliss Eye Care at no cost at all.

Madam Stella Sungbamaana the KG1 teacher expressed satisfaction at the situation little Cindy now finds herself. She complained about how the little girl could not identify alphabets on the blackboard from her seat and had to walk to the board to see properly.

She also lamented over how she always isolated herself from her mates most at times. ‘She likes bowing down before writing but with this, the head is up and she is able to write and I know she is now seeing what she is doing’ Madam Stella added.

This story may not be any different from several children all over the region and beyond, who may not have such opportunities available to these beneficiaries.

In conjunction with the Ghana Education Service, Bliss Eye Care is embarking on this project aimed at improving children with sight defects, to enable them study with ease. The project has so far reached out to over 2,224 school children across the Upper West Region of the country. 257 has so far received various spectacles and optical aids to correct their visual defects whilst 1,628 received treatment for some eye conditions they presented to the various eye camps organized to screen the children. 

Dr. Zakarea Al-hasan Balure, the team leader for the project speaking at the Municipal Education office, bemoaned the notion people have for children using corrective lenses. The team leader said it isn’t true using such aids would leave children blind in the future. In fact he explained situations some children have had their sights corrected and don’t even use the lenses anymore as they mature.

Presenting the lenses, Dr. Zakarea educated the school children and their parent on the best practices of keeping the lenses insisting they are expensive objects. This he said they need to know so that they would better appreciate the objects. He bemoaned the attitude generally towards handling things given for free, insisting getting things for free doesn’t mean it is cheap.

The municipal PRO of the GES Mr. Osman Sagripeo speaking on behalf of the director was grateful for the intervention offered by Bliss Eye Care.

The PRO also asked the children not to shy when their friends make fun of them.

The Regional School Health and Adolescent Officer of Health with the Ghana Health Service, Madam Rosemary Banpie cautioned the children to take very good care of the lenses received. She advised that proper care be taken to prevent their colleagues from damaging the devices.

In attendance was the Municipal Special Education Coordinator Mr. Abudu Issahaku, Municipal Health Education Program coordinator Mr. Abugri Timothy and the Mangu Circuit Supervisor Mr. Issahaku Badoung and some parents of the benefactors.

The project which has funded over 60 medicated lenses in its recent outreach is always supported by the families of Hans K. Maedar and Dr. Fasnacht and Mr. Roland Studar and the PRO VISUS  organization of Switzerland.

However, two critical cases identified during the screening stages are yet to receive surgical operations for free in January next year.

Source: www.watchghana.com