By Hope 103.2Thursday 30 Jul 2020Station NewsReading Time: 3 minutes
Hope 103.2 is honoured to continue its partnership with CBM Australia for Miracles Day — giving you the chance to gift someone in a developing country their sight back.
Since Miracles Day began, Australian radio listeners have given almost 200,000 Miracle gifts of sight-saving surgery for people living with unnecessary cataracts.
Surgery takes just 12 minutes but restores their sight for a lifetime.
I want to give an urgently-needed Miracle, today!
BEH fieldworker Parshuram Shrestha performs a finger-counting test on client Sudip, 5, during home visit, as mother Nirmala and father Sher Bahadur look on. Sudip lives with his parents and four siblings in a remote hill village of Ilam district, about 600km east of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu. He was around three when he showed first signs of visual impairment, however, his parents never took him to an eye clinic thinking the treatment would be very expensive.
In previous years, Breakfast teams around the country including our very own Sam & Duncan have traveled to hospitals where these sight-saving surgeries have taken place such as Nepal, Vietnam, and the Philippines. They’ve seen first-hand the difference these relatively simple operations have, not just on the lives of the people experiencing low vision or blindness, but also on their families and communities.
The reality for anyone with a disability in a developing country is that they will suffer poverty, isolation and inequality.
Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, we’re all staying put this year but the need overseas is still great — if not more essential now with the added complexities of a global pandemic.
Hope 103.2 has once again joined with CBM Australia and other like-minded community radio stations across Australia to collectively raise 35,000 Miracles.
We are asking Hopeland to raise 6640 of those Miracles! We can’t all drop everything and go overseas. But we can help from right where we are!
I want to gift the gift of sight for only $33
Miracles Day 2020
This year, COVID-19 means we cannot broadcast live from a CBM-supported hospital overseas. But this gives us an opportunity.
In 2020 we’re asking listeners to give a Miracle where it’s most needed.
Our focus is on asking listeners to change someone’s life but to focus on the one person whose sight they can restore, for just $33.
First cataract surgery for Sudip. Ophthalmologist Sanjay Kumar Singh examines his eyes using a slit lamp instrument at CBM partner Biratnagar Eye Hospital.
$33 = sight for one person
$330 = sight for 10 people
$3,300 = sight for 100 people
I want to gift someone their sight back, which will support them and their family!
Why is Miracles Day important?
- More than 65 million people worldwide have cataracts, the majority of these people live in the world’s poorest countries, where they can’t afford surgery and so live needlessly blind
- In 2019, CBM Australia worked alongside field partners in Bangladesh, Cameroon, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Niger, Tanzania, the Philippines and Vietnam to provide eye health projects and funded 86,813 eye surgeries in those countries. This year, that figure is forecast to double.
- A cataract is a clouding of the lens of the eye which prevents people seeing clearly. It can occur in one or both eyes. Many people become legally blind from untreated cataracts, and cataracts can even cause total blindness if left untreated for long periods, or if people cannot access affordable eye care and surgery.
- Worldwide, 65.2 million people have cataracts, making it one of the leading causes of vision impairment.
- While cataracts are most commonly diagnosed among people aged 60 and up, it can occur in younger people and children too.
- The majority of people with cataracts live in low-income countries, where people remain blind because they cannot afford the surgery needed.
- Cataracts can be surgically removed and this is very successful in restoring sight.
- Approximately 80% of vision impairment globally is considered avoidable. This means that people could get their sight restored if they just had access to treatment.
- When someone loses their sight due to cataracts, it impacts not only them but also their family. Grandparents may not be able to care for grandchildren, or may require a family member to stay home from work or school to help them. Parents may no longer be able to work and earn an income for their family. Children may no longer be able to move safely around their community, or go to school.