UK-Muslims-Child blindness
British charity Muslim Aid announced Tuesday that it 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 programs for blind children in other countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where most of the world’s blind children live.

"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."
The project is to run until May, 2009 and will also include training the charity’s overseas staff in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan on how to find, treat and prevent child blindness in their regions.

With World Sight Day to be celebrated on Thursday, Muslim Aid said it was funding the initiative by donating pnd 150,000 (USD 270,000) to ICEH, which is developing the project.

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, with the involvement of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), which is spearheading the campaign.

"We also provided sight-restoring cataract surgeries to blind children from remote villages, who might have otherwise never been detected," said Muhammad Muhit from the LSHTM, which as a world leading institution has a mission to improve health worldwide.

"Now those children are no longer blind. They are going to schools and growing up to become active citizens of the future world," Muhit said.

Balil said the campaign had directly saved the sight and lives of over 2,000 children in the countries concerned. The charity, he said, also provided glasses where necessary.

Muslim Aid was founded in London by 23 leading British Muslim organizations in 1985 with a mission to address poverty, regenerate deprived areas and provide a range of enablement services to deprived communities in order to achieve realistic development.