Tutu wants miracle of helping blind to see
Published: August 9, 2006
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has spoken of the miracle of giving sight to people through cataract operations.
Speaking at the launch of a drive to perform 100 000 cataract operations worldwide over the next 100 days, he said sighted people took so many things for granted.
“Can you imagine what it must be like when a child who has been blind from birth has one of these operations, and they remove the bandages and the child sees their mother and their father for the first time? Don’t you want to be part of making such a miracle happen?” he asked.
The drive was launched by an international NGO, the Christian Blind Mission, at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town on Tuesday.
According to CBM president Professor Allen Foster, about 17 million people worldwide are totally blind because of cataracts.
It is a reversible condition in a relatively simple ten to fifteen-minute operation.
“This is one of the great injustices in the world today,” he said.
Over the past 30 years, he said, CBM has provided funding for over six million cataract operations, and last year was responsible for 640 000.
The “100 000 Miracles in 100 Days” campaign would mean that that number of extra operations would be carried out this year.
South Africa has been chosen as the venue for the launch because of the symbolism of the fact that there are about 100 000 people in the country who are blinded by cataracts.
About 2 000 of the “miracle” operations will be carried out in South Africa.
Tutu and Foster together broke a “fulani stick”, used by children to lead blind adults around in east Africa, to symbolise breaking the cycle of blindness.
A cataract is a clouding of the lens of the eye, usually as a result of ageing, though it can also occur through disease or injury.
The operation usually involves replacing the lens with a plastic substitute.
According to Foster, CBM not only funds operations directly, but also invests in infrastructure and training, to ensure that cataract surgery is available on a long-term, sustainable basis.
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