10,000 pairs of eyeglasses fly to Afghanistan
Eyeglasses are one of the most commonly-found items in our pockets or handbags - and obviously on our noses -, and yet for thousands of people they are only a dream. You won’t find opticians or even any optical stores in certain areas of Afghanistan, where children, women and men of all ages cannot get proper medical attention or even obtain a simple item that completely changes life if your eyesight is poor. But in the last few days, 10,000 pairs of eyeglasses, medical equipment and two specialized ophthalmic surgery machines took off for Kabul and, in particular, for Herat, one of the most difficult and isolated regions of Afghanistan.
«We have already started delivering the eyeglasses in some villages with the help of a mobile clinic and Afghan opticians» said Maurizio Mortara, a healthcare technician from Genoa now living in Kabul. After consolidated experience with other non-government organizations in Afghanistan, a year and a half ago he founded at Ovada the “Volunteers onlus” association that is active in this Asian country and on the Ivory Coast.
The association has about 600 members and twenty or so active collaborators and works with the international cooperation of Italy. Mortara left October 1 on a mission to the area between the capital, Kabul, where two wards at Esteqlal Hospital will be prepared (also with beds and medical equipment), and the region of Herat, where two machines for ultrasound ophthalmic surgery were delivered; now, with the help of Italian doctors, starting from head ophthalmology specialist at Turin, professor Fabio Dossi, Afghan opticians will be trained to operate on the many patients who are waiting for corrective surgery. Their mobile clinics will travel on rough and difficult roads to reach the villages where they can examine the people.
Equipment with a value of two-hundred-thousand euros was collected with a great deal of help, but above all with a hope: even from a single pair of eyeglasses that will change a life. With tenacity and passion, over the years Maurizio Mortara has established warm relationships of collaboration with Afghan doctors; but first and foremost, he explained, «the most important thing and the one that makes the effort worthwhile, is seeing children who are dying when they arrive at the hospital, run to hug you only a month later. What I would like is to make people, young people especially, understand the importance of this solidarity, of becoming even a small but essential part of a country: like the time we were able to take an uninterruptible power source to Esteqlal Hospital to avoid the frequent blackouts that would have delayed treatments and surgery».
Source: La Repubblica
