Have you ever thought about what it would be like to lose your sight? Close your eyes and imagine going about your day – how much of what you do would still be possible if you couldn’t see, and had no support or help adapting? Who or what would you miss seeing most?
Now imagine how frustrating it would be if the condition that caused your sight loss was completely treatable, but medical help was out of your reach.
Hard to comprehend, isn’t it? So Sightsavers asked three UK volunteers to see through the eyes of someone suffering from cataract for a day, and it totally changed their perception of the value of sight.
At the end of the day the volunteers got their sight back, unlike the millions of people globally suffering from cataract in the world’s poorest countries. Amazingly, just a 10-minute, £30 surgery could restore their vision.
People like Laurinda in Mozambique, who is in her early 30’s and a single mother to seven children, including one year old Telma who she has never seen. She’s been blind for four years, can’t work or even get water for herself, and had no hope of seeing again until the Sightsavers mobile surgery team met her during a village screening.
Over four weeks the Sightsavers team will follow Laurinda and her family as she finds out that she’ll be able to see again, accompany her to the hospital for surgery, and share the moment that she sees her daughter. The difference it’ll make to her life, and her family’s, is indescribable.
If you would like to save the sight of one of the 18.9 million sufferers of cataract, visit the po.st/Sightsavers.