Eye Camps:
Since
1998, IRIS has funded the annual eye camp program organised
by IRIS-Nepal, a local voluntary organisation founded by
a group of Nepalese doctors and ophthalmologists which includes
Dr. Bal Kumar Khatri KC who worked 7 years as the IRIS Chief
Medical Officer in Cambodia. Each year eye camps are arranged
in remote, rural areas with the aim of providing cataract
surgery to poor people unable to access eye care treatment
at local level.
In 2007, IRIS provided a grant of $7,915 towards the cost
of eye camps to be staged by IRIS Nepal in 2007 & 2008.
By end December 2008, eight camps had been staged that resulted
in 6,570 people being examined and 511 surgeries being performed.
This brings the total number of people examined since the
program started in 1998 to 20,166 and the number of blindness
prevention surgeries performed to 2,106.
Tilganga Community Health Centre
Located in the midst of a community of 500 families of Dalit
caste (the ‘Untouchables’), the IRIS-Nepal Tilganga
Community Health Centre is on the outskirts of the Kathmandu
and provides low cost high quality general health care to
disadvantaged poor families living in the surrounding area.
With a grant of $8,000 provided by IRIS in 2008, the Tilganga
Centre offered a weekly program providing primary health
care, treating minor diseases, mental health services, family
planning, antenatal & postnatal care and an immunization
program for children.
Centre staff also encouraged local women to participate
in a rolling programme of livelihood training to learn skills
in sewing and tailoring, where participants received 2-hours
training a day, 6 days a week over a 6-month period, with
the aim of either their gaining employment with a local
tailor or opening their own small business.
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Michele and the children
of Nepal |
Opening day at an eye camp in Nepal |
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