Did you know that blindness and poverty are inextricably linked?

Were you aware that there are 45 million blind people in the world? 90% of disabled children don’t go to school. 90% of cases occur in developing countries and 80% are in fact avoidable or treatable diseases.

These facts were shared by the General Manager of Sight Savers Middle East, Luke Thomas, who came to introduce his organisation and their activities in the region. Sight Savers’ history is fascinating, this international development charity was founded in 1950 by Sir John Wilson, who was himself blind.

When you know that the biggest cause of blindness is cataract, you understand that blindness and poverty go hand in hand. While preventing is better than treating, Sight Savers is working on very isolated areas in Africa and India to distribute treatments for free. To date 150,000,000 treatments have been delivered.

Educating people is key to make them understand that simple gestures such as using clean water and merely washing hands regularly can avoid the worse in certain parts of our globe.

I have to say that it’s hard for me to comment or add anything to what has been touched on, because when you know that 32 million people have been already treated, 8 million had a surgery and training benefited 161,112 people; you can only congratulate the initiative. There are simple things we have in life that make a big difference without us even realising. Let’s be grateful and truly appreciate them!