Lions Provide Eye Care For Dodowa Residents At Annual Ngmayem Festival

The Lions Clubs International is the world’s premier and largest humanitarian volunteer service organization in the world with over 1.42 million members in more than 47,000 clubs are serving in over 200 countries and geographic areas around the globe. Since Helen Keller inspired the Lions Clubs International in 1925 to champion the cause for the blind and visually impaired, Lions have served and advocated on eye-related issues unhindered for nearly a century.

As part of this long-standing mission, Lions and Leos in District 418, Ghana in partnership with Shai Osudoku District Assembly and Dodowa District Health Directorate conducted an Eye Screening activity with donation of free eye glasses and medication for the people of Dodowa at their annual Shai Ngmayem Festival on Saturday 5th October, 2019.

A total of 161 people were screened during the eye screening. Out of this number:

• 46 people received free reading eye glasses
• 25 people were referred to the Shai Osudoku District Hospital for further checks
• 22 people had allergic disorders
• 11 people were diagnosed with cataract
• 7 people were diagnosed with suspicious disease

The chairman of the planning committee Lion IPP Seyram Freddy Ahiabor of Accra Golden Lions Club in an interview emphasized that, “serving the community especially in the domain of eye care and prevention was the calling of Lions all over the world. He stressed 89% of people with visual impairment live in developing countries and so it was important for Lions to do their bit in Ghana to help reduce this statistic.”

Some vision facts are below:

• 253 million people are blind or have moderate to severe distance vision impairment (MSVI)
• 1.1 billion have near-vision impairment simply because they don’t have a pair of glasses
• >75% of all blindness and MSVI is avoidable

The activity was conducted jointly by 12 Lions clubs namely Accra Golden, Accra Premier, Accra Diamond, Accra Ebony, Accra Ultimate, Accra Platinum, Accra Spintex, Accra Gye Nyame, Tema, Tema Greenwich, Adenta Mountain View and Legon Lions Clubs.