Operation Eyesight

One of the social initiatives of "Impact,” the XIV North American Congress scheduled for June 29-July 2, 2007 in Toronto, is increased dissemination of the Operation Eyesight Universal. A Canadian charity that works to break the vicious circle between poverty and blindness, it has been an ongoing concern that has helped many in developing countries, including India.

In a letter to fellow Zoroastrians on the occasion of Jamshedi Navroz, circulated with the newsletter of the Toronto based Zoroastrian Society of Ontario, Jamshid Jam writes about 76-year-old laborer Mohini Rabi Das in Malda, West Bengal who had been reduced to beggary when his eyesight failed. When his dense cataracts were removed at Malda’s Secondary Eye Care Centre, his occupation, his self-respect, his desire to live were restored to him.

A similar transformation took place in the lives of 11-year-old Mukhtiyar and his six-year-old twin sisters Mohseena and Mobeena, born with congenital cataracts in both eyes to day laborers Muneer and Shehnaz Basha in India’s Chittoor district. The unhappy misfits and their anxious parents were relieved when a screening camp diagnosed their curable condition and donations from Canada financed the necessary operation. Restored to sight, they are now busy catching up on missed schooling, writes Jam.

"We have helped change the lives of these people and so many others. We have given hope when there seemed to be none and life to those who had given up believing…(but) there are still so many struggling with the cycle of poverty and blindness. We can make a critical difference…” notes Jam’s Navroz message to the community.

The Impact advertisement urges Congress registrants to bring discarded but usable eyeglasses for donation to the visually impaired in the developing countries.