Muslim Aid has entered into a new three-year agreement with the International Centre for Eye Health (ICEH) to help prevent and cure child blindness.

The agreement will focus on a project in Bangladesh, but it will also develop more programmes for blind children in other countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where most of the world's blind children live.

The project will run until May of 2009, and will also include training Muslim Aid's overseas staff in how to find, treat and prevent child blindness in their regions. The Muslim Aid offices in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan will benefit from this training.

"Muslim Aid is committed to the prevention of blindness," said Nasir Bilal, Orphan Care Manager at Muslim Aid. "We are also working towards reducing the unnecessary suffering of people with blindness and similar disabilities in developing countries."

With World Sight Day being celebrated on Thursday October 12, Muslim Aid will fund this initiative by donating £150,000 to ICEH, who has developed the project, and raised awareness through various networks and training programmes.

Muslim Aid started its Child Blindness Project in 2002, initially in Bangladesh, and followed it up with other projects in Pakistan, Sudan, and Uganda through Muslim Aid offices and partner organizations. Children were screened and provided with vitamin 'A', which saves sight and even lives.

"We also provided sight-restoring cataract surgeries in blind children from remote villages, who might have otherwise never been detected, referred or treated with Muslim Aid's support," said Dr Muhammad Muhit of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who will be spearheading the campaign. "Now those children are no longer blind. They are going to schools and growing up to become active citizens of the future world."

"The campaign has directly saved the sight and lives of over 2,000 children in those countries," agreed Nasir Bilal. "We also provided glasses where necessary. This pioneer project has entered a new phase with the signing of the MOU with ICEH."

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is a world-leading institution with the mission to improve public health worldwide. Muslim Aid's mission is to address poverty, regenerate deprived areas and provide a range of enablement services to affected/deprived communities in order to achieve realistic development.

(ENDS)

del.icio.us  |   Digg  |   NewsVine  |   Reddit