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Friday Sep 20, 2024
Saturday, 5 December 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
What?
Simply it’s a fundraiser. They commit to walking the entire breath of Sri Lanka (330 km) from 26 November to 12 December and need to raise $ 350,000.
Why?
To prevent avoidable blindness in Sri Lanka.
60% of blindness in Sri Lanka is avoidable. Most of those who can afford it, avoid it. But there are those who simply don’t know it’s avoidable, or even if they do know they cannot afford the cost involved or have trouble accessing hospitals. Vision 2020 program of the Ministry of Health carries out mobile clinics and surgery targeting those who cannot afford or access medical care.
Set up in 2007 the program carries out mass scale cataract surgeries on poorer patients. The commitment of the team is unquestionable – there have been times when more than 100 surgeries were carried out on location in a day. But, as always there are challenges.
Approximately 200,000 surgeries a year are needed to be carried out to clearing the backlog of cataract surgeries in Sri Lanka within five years. The biggest challenge for the Vision 2020 team’s contribution towards this target is mobility – transporting its equipment and professionals to under-served areas. Their aim is to provide a solution to this problem.
The solution is a Mobile Eye Care Unit – which will carry all the equipment as well as act as the indoor space of a clinic.
“How can I help?”
YES! You asked the magic question! You can ‘walk’!
Be a Vision Walker by walking the entire 330 km in 16 days. You will help prevent blindness by finding a minimum of Rs. 350,000 ($ 2,500) through those who sponsor your effort.
Be a Mission Walker by walking one of the four segments of the total walk (the distance and days will depend on the segment you choose). You will help prevent blindness by finding a minimum of Rs. 65,000 ($ 500) through those who sponsor your effort.
Can’t but want to ‘walk’? Be a Sky Walker! Join the walkers via satellite. A Sky Walker earns money to prevent blindness through sponsorships just like a Vision Walker or a Mission Walker. But you don’t really step on the ground – you walk in the sky! Your effort will contribute a minimum of Rs. 20,000 ($ 150) through those who sponsor your effort.
Registration of Walkers
If you wish to be a Walker you need to register. And of course you will have a string of questions to ask before you make up your mind! Please mail [email protected] for more information. We have limited space for Vision Walkers, but a few more slots are open for Mission Walkers. Slots for Sky Walkers – the sky’s the limit!
Support the Walkers!
This whole effort relies on ‘you’! The Walkers will walk (on earth or sky!), but if we are to find the funds needed to prevent blindness, we need people who will commit cash. Support any type of walker you like, with any amount of cash you can afford. And, please, spread the word and get others to sponsor the Walkers.
Funding procedure
Pick a walker and invest in him/her through the payment gateway in www. Sightforlife.lk
Not comfortable with ‘e-payments’ but still want to be a shareholder? Deposit in account number 0029 6000 3171 in Sampath Bank (Swift Code BSAMLKLX)
Contact them soon! There are many people moving fast towards blindness. Let’s stop avoidable blindness.
Khalid Oshman
Khalid Oshman lost his vision when he was 26 years old. ‘Till then my world was colourful. Now it is dark’. It’s a darkness that does not invade his soul or his determination – his determination to keep moving forward in his life and his determination to stop others from falling prey to avoidable blindness.
On 26 November 2015 Khalid begins a journey that will be life changing for him, and he hopes, for hundreds of other Sri Lankans. Close your eyes and walk across your dining room, your office room…see how many things you will bump into and how often your eyes will fly open. Then imagine the enormity of the task Khalid is setting himself. Together with Maheel from Matara, Nominathan from Jaffna and Chamara from Galle, Khalid will start the Walk for Sight – a long trek that will last for 16 days. It will take the four of them 330 km across the country from Batticaloa on the eastern coast to Colombo – on foot. Trekking in the sizzling heat of the eastern province, climbing up the central hills and down to the urbanised coast...it is a not a task to be undertaken for the fun of it. None of them have hiked long distances before. So why start on this adventure? Just to challenge themselves?
They are pushing themselves into a strenuous task because they have a plan. A plan they hope will work. If it does the thousands of Sri Lankans who are currently moving rapidly towards blindness will have a very good chance of complete recovery.
60% of blindness in Sri Lanka is avoidable. Most of those who can afford it, avoid it. But there are those who simply don’t know it’s avoidable, or even if they do know they cannot afford the cost involved or have trouble accessing hospitals. The state health care is extensive but not enough. The outreach to rural areas has to be increased. The solution is a Mobile Eye Care Unit. A Mobile Eye Unit that will be manned by medical staff from the Ministry of Health, Vision2020 Program.
“What we are attempting is what is known as a charity walk, or a sponsored walk. We pledge to carry out this strenuous trek across Sri Lanka; in return individual Sri Lankans and cooperates put down funds which will be used to purchase the Mobile Eye Care Unit. In other countries this is a very popular method of raising a large amount of funds. In Sri Lanka the concept is not very well known. It is a challenge to explain to people how the fund raising works.”
So how does it work? Each walker has pledged to raise a minimum of Rs. 350,000; that is approximately Rs. 1,000 per km. Pick a walker and invest in him. Or, if you are up to the challenge, walk yourself – either the full distance or one segment of it. And, of course, bring in sponsors! To get more details check out www.sightforlife.lk, facebook sight for life or e-mail [email protected]. If you would rather call, speak of Dr. Asela Abeydeera on 0112 693 744 or 0771227753.
Dr. Asela Abeydeera examining an old lady by the road
“We were volunteering with the Vision2020 Sri Lanka medical team at an eye camp in a very isolated village surrounded by the Dumbara Forest Reserve. We had driven, transferred to motorbikes as one of the vehicles could not make it on the bad terrain and then walked. We carried out the eye clinic treating all the villagers that had arrived. Now we were done and returning to the main road, when suddenly an old lady hobbled on to our path and waved her walking stick at our vehicle.
Dr. Asela stopped, spoke to her. She had been waiting for the medical team. Too old to walk the 3 km to the clinic, she sat and waited knowing the medical team would travel back on this road. It had been a long hard day, but Dr. Asela and team did not hesitate for a moment. Layers of equipment were shifted and what he needed taken out. He examined her then and there, sitting by the road side in a village in the forest. For her, the greatest joy was that a ‘real doctor’ had come right into her village and examined her.
What impressed us, the volunteers, was the work ethic, good cheer and kindness of Dr. Asela and his team. This is what made us decide on raising the funds they needed to improve their service. We decided to walk across Sri Lanka – 330 km from east to west from beach to beach. We will collect money to acquire a Mobile Eye Care Unit that will carry the equipment and medical team to the most needed areas of rural Sri Lanka.”
Maheel Mahadurage, Chamara Ekanayake, Khalid Oshman and Chalana Jayamaha are the lead walkers of ‘Walk for Sight’ from Batticaloa to Colombo, which started 26 November and will be arriving in Colombo on 12 December. Many friends from Colombo and towns and villages along the route will join them to walk and raise funds.
If Vision2020 program of the Ministry of Health and its group of volunteers are to succeed in its Sight for Life fund raising effort to fight avoidable blindness in Sri Lanka, it needs your help. Please contact Dr. Asela Abeydeera, on 0112 693 744/0771227753, [email protected] or through the website Sightforlife.lk.
