Lions Club offers free eye tests for school children
Over the years the Lions movement worldwide has developed an outstanding reputation for assisting people suffering from sight related ailments. While it has mostly been adults who have benefited from the generosity of the voluntary organization, today it was some Belize City school children who were on the receiving end. Julietta Burrowes reports.
Over seventy five Belize City students today received free eye tests courtesy of the Lions Club. Trained members of the sight conservation committee today visited Canaan High School and Ebenezer Primary School to test and detect those students with eye related problems.
Q: “What’s wrong with your eyes?”
Jason Belinscio
“Ih bad, I can’t see good with this eye.”
Tefara Waight
“Ih hurt me. When ih hurt me my eye water just drop.”
Q: “Do you have problems reading and seeing the blackboard at school?”
Tefara Waight
“Yes maam.”
Q: “What’s wrong with your eyes Stacey?”
Stacey Smith
“When I di read I lone sih wrong ting.”
Q: “How does that mess you up with your school and with your lessons?”
Stacey Smith
“Ih mek me gat headache and my eye di hurt me.”
Tera Sabido
“When I deh eena di sun like I find myself, like my eye start to hurt me and when I go dah school eena di maanin and I deh far form the blackboard, I can’t see so good.”
The main thrust of Lions worldwide is to provide assistance to those with vision problems, sight conservation and working with the blind. These students today were identified by their teachers as those in need of special assistance.
Estilito Loria
“What they will do in turn, is that when they check there will be additional follow up if the need arises and then these cases will be sent then to our Ophthalmologist Dr. Amin Hegar or they will be referred to the clinic on Princess Margaret Drive.
If it’s not graduated lenses, in other words, bi-focal lenses, if it’s only reading lenses, the Lion’s club provides that free – free of cost. And if there is a case if the parents cannot afford to pay for the lenses, the prescribed lenses, well then also the club also funds also to take care of that need.”
Of the seventy five students that were tested, twelve will need further examinations and that too will be provided free of cost by the Lions Club. After all, they are called the knights of the blind. Julietta Burrowes for News Five.
The free eye tests for primary school students was part of activities this week, marking the twenty fifth anniversary of the Belize City branch of the Lions Club.
