Jenivia's story - her sight and future restored
Jenivia is nine years old. She lives in a refugee camp, or ‘Internally Displaced Persons' camp (IDP Camp) in Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste.
An estimated 100,000 Timorese people like Jenivia are displaced, either because their homes were destroyed in the 2006 conflict, or because they are too scared to live at home for fear of attack.
Although times are hard and food is scarce, Jenivia still tries to live a normal life. She has many friends and enjoys studying at school. In the future she hopes to graduate and get a good job so that she can help provide for her family.
But Jenivia has a problem: her eyesight began deteriorating one year a go and she is finding it hard to see the blackboard at school. Reading and writing are becoming difficult too, and her school work is suffering. She worries that if her eye sight worsens she will not be able to pass her exams and graduate
Jenivia simply needs correctly prescribed glasses. But before she had her eyes screened she did not know there was a solution to her problem, she thought living with poor vision was normal.
This is a common story in Timor-Leste where there is very limited access to and knowledge of eye care. Despite a population of 925,000 people, there is only one partially qualified eye doctor and few eye nurses, this means that many thousands of people have no access to even the most basic eye care.
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Luckily, Jenivia had her eyes screened by a local eye team who were trained and funded by The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ. She was prescribed a pair of low-cost glasses and her vision was restored. Receiving a pair of spectacles will help Jenivia continue her studies, graduate from school and could be the difference between a life of poverty,
or one of opportunity.
Jenivia was just one of almost 2000 school pupils who had their eyes screened by eye teams trained and funded by The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ. Going to school is not something children take for granted in Timor-Leste. During the civil unrest in 1999, over 90% of schools were destroyed and most teachers and school administrators fled the country.
Schools are slowly being re-established, but there are still tens of thousands of children who do not attend. This makes it even more important that children at school can actually see to read and learn.
Jenivia was lucky, she was able to receive a pair of correctly prescribed glasses. But there are still 240,000 people in the Pacific region who suffer from low vision. Most of these people simply need correctly prescribed glasses to see clearly.
As well as those suffering from low vision there are a further 80,000 people in the Pacific region who are needlessly blind, 70% as a result of cataracts. Cataract blindness can be treated in a 20 minute operation costing as little as $25, but there is a serious shortage of eye doctors and nurses in the Pacific region, so most people have no access to treatment.