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Seeing is believing

dubai — Her friends can no longer tease her about her squint eyes, something the beaming 11-year-old Anjaleen cannot stop gushing about. On Wednesday, the young Malian girl and five other children, underwent corrective day eye surgeries at the Dubai Hospital under the Noor Dubai project.

‘Noor Dubai’, announced by His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai on September 3, aims at treating at least one million people suffering from treatable blindness and visual impairment worldwide.

Anjaleen’s father, Diarra, who accompanied his daughter to Dubai for the first time, was ecstatic about his daughter’s treatment. “A hospital in Mali told us about Noor Dubai and we were very excited since there are no eye specialists in Mali,” he said in broken English.

Eight-year-old Egyptian national Mohammed Ahmed Abdul Rahman, too, has benefitted from the initiative. “He was born with this condition (squint) but we were always afraid to have an operation done,” said his mother.

“But we are glad that Noor Dubai gave us the courage and helped our child,” said the mother, who travelled from Abu Dhabi for the surgery. Under the programme, the hospital is yet to carry out at least 500 more similar surgeries on people from 14 countries.

The patients arrived in Dubai last week from different parts of the world, including Africa, Asia and other Arab countries.

Meanwhile, the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital, which landed at the Dubai International Airport earlier this week will help launch the Noor Dubai educational component starting today.

On Tuesday evening, in the presence of Shaikh Majid bin Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, Noor Dubai formally honoured officials of its two international partners — ORBIS International and Lions Club International.

Speakers at the event applauded the humanitarian endeavour of Shaikh Mohammed and pledged their unwavering support to his vision of a world free from preventable forms of blindness.

Geoffrey Holland, Executive Director and CEO of ORBIS International, said, “The ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital is available to work in all countries, and our experience in delivering long-term, sustainable blindness prevention projects is fully at the disposal of the Noor Dubai programme.”

Dubai Health Authority is mandated with the responsibility of implementing the Noor Dubai agenda in collaboration with ORBIS as well as Lions Clubs International. Peter Lynch, Executive Director, Lions Club International, said, “Since 1990, we are involved in the fight against blindness by constructing eye clinics in under-served countries and organising large scale treatment programmes for cataract, corneal blindness and preventable eye diseases such as trachoma.”