Charity Nwakudu, Abuja
For the family of Danlami Agyo it was the beginning of a new dawn from years of darkness when it was hit with sickness, affecting the sight of five members of the household.
Agyo had lost hope that his children and wife who had gone blind would ever see with their eyes again until he had contact with the TY Danjuma Foundation through Care Vision Support Initiative (CAVSI), a non-governmental organisation based in Jos, Plateau State. They were all suffering from bilateral congenital cataract, a visual impairment caused largely by inherited traits and in some instances, undetermined factors.
Indeed, one of the foundation’s consistent funding of primary eye care intervention is that of the Agyo family. Through the support and funding from the foundation, CAVSI was able to restore the vision of all five members of the family through specialised cataract surgery conducted at the Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH).
The children’s sights were restored and are back in school. Needless to say, this intervention has given these children a life time opportunity to be educated and contribute to the society, just as it was gathered that their mother following the restoration of her sight, has returned to her farm to continue her subsistence farming.
Agyo could not hide his joy. He told Daily Sun through an interpreter: “Thank you TY Danjuma Foundation, thank you CAVSI. I don’t know what to say because when we thought it was all over, you gave us a reason to believe there is life.
“Without you, we would have remained the way we were but God intervened and used you to change our story. My family is indebted to you and we can’t pay you back. I pray to God on behalf of my family to continue to use you to touch the lives of our people as you have done for us.”
A staff of CAVSI said: “With this support, the foundation has without wavering, empowered CAVSI in multiple medical outreaches in urban and rural dwellings, making it possible for thousands of impoverished Nigerians to get treated free of charge of such eye ailments as cataract, Bilamellar Tarsal Rotation (BTR) and Pterygium excisions.
“Record showed that blindness, is becoming a growing concern for rural dwellers in some parts of Northern Nigeria, especially for those with poor access to clean drinking water.
“In most cases, eye infections are often treated trado-medically despite repeated warnings by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the dangers of patronising ill-trained medical personnel.
“Worrisome still however, is that the level of awareness is abysmally low, leaving the fate of those suffering from one eye ailment or the other at the mercy of native healers whose only medical certification is that their forebears were traditional healers.
“Needless to state that many have gone blind owing solely to lack of medical attention, made worse by poverty that over the years, has become second nature to millions of Nigerians.”