The Blind Foundation for India (BFI) organized a fundraising musical evening at Avery Coonley School’s Performing Arts Center here June 25 to create awareness about blind people in India.
Over 180 people enjoyed the musical evening with melodious songs by Dr. Dipak Shah and Dr. Sheela Shah.
Young artists from the Soorya Dance School of Northbrook gave enchanting performances to enthrall the audience, and Hitesh Master from Sa Re Ga Ma Orchestra kept the crowd engaged throughout the evening.
Dr. Rajendra Dave and Dr. Kumar Moolayil served as emcees for the event, during which BFI raised over $13,000 to be used to fund a medical van in India.
Dr. Manu Vora, president of BFI, highlighted the plight of over 15 million blind people in India which constitutes one out of every three blind person in the world.
He also shared the exponential power of prevention — $1 worth of vitamin A drops administered from age four to six prevents a child from going blind. In India a cataract operation costs only $20, compared to $4,000 in the United States, which is 200 times higher.
BFI was established in 1989 with a mission to prevent and cure blindness and educate and rehabilitate permanently blind people in India. Over the years, the BFI team has raised over $3.5 million to examine the eyesight of over a million people.
So far, BFI has conducted over 110,000 free cataract operations, donated 104 medical vans to transport doctors and patients and distributed over 10,000 Braille kits to blind children for their education.
The current BFI focus is on prevention of blindness through Child Sight Projects. Over 500,000 children in government schools are examined for their eyesight and given necessary glasses, eye drops and vitamin A, and cataract surgeries are performed in rare cases.
For further information about BFI, visit http://www.blindfoundation.org
Source : India West , 2nd July 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment