One of the best ways to help people get out of poverty is to treat blindness and deafness. Because some of them can be prevented, like cataracts and bad vision. This is especially true for vulnerable groups like refugees living in temporary housing. UMR has launched a cataract & hearing aid mission for helping them.
Cataract Missions – Life with Blindness
Cataract accounts for 30%-50% of blindness in most African and Asian countries. In impoverished countries, eliminating blindness and repairing vision returns four times the investment. This places eliminating avoidable blindness among the most effective interventions available. Cataract surgeries are life-changing and require no follow-up visits.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) “Cataracts are the primary cause of blindness and visual impairment. It has about 20 million cases and 5 million new cases each year.”
Life With Hearing Loss and Deafness
Loss of hearing can happen for many reasons. Such as –
- Genetic Causes,
- Complications At Birth,
- Certain Infectious Diseases,
- Chronic Ear Infections,
- The Use Of Particular Drugs,
- Exposure To Excessive Noise, and
- Aging.
Loss of hearing means that you can’t hear as well as someone with normal hearing. It means that your hearing level is at least 25 dB in both ears. Loss of hearing can happen in one or both ears. This makes it hard to understand words or hear loud noises.
Hard of hearing means hearing loss ranging from mild to severe. Hard-of-hearing people communicate using :
- Spoken language,
- Hearing aids,
- Cochlear implants, and
- Other equipment.
Deafness is profound hearing loss. It implies very little or no hearing in an individual. They often use sign language for communication.
- 60% of hearing loss is because of preventable causes, in children under the age of 15.
- 1.1 billion individuals are at risk of hearing loss due to exposure to high noise. High risk for ages between 12–35 years.
- Over one-third of people over 65 years of age are affected by disabling hearing loss. Greater prevalence in South Asia, Asia Pacific and sub-Saharan Africa.
- The current production of hearing aids meets less than 10% of the worldwide need.
UMR Interventions
Since 2016, UMR has sent cataract surgery missions to Kenya, Jordan, and Bangladesh. UMR provides quality medical care to the elderly, disabled, refugees, and vulnerable. Many of them live without family or government support. We have helped them by healing curable blindness. Our kind contributors have funded over 1,000 cataract procedures. In this process, we have collaborated with partner NGOs and Ministries of Health. Our $100-per-eye operations are 100% successful with no problems.
Since 2016, UMR has sent cataract surgery missions to Kenya, Jordan, and Bangladesh. UMR provides quality medical care to the elderly, disabled, refugees, and vulnerable. Many of them live without family or government support. We have helped them by healing curable blindness. Our kind contributors have funded over 1,000 cataract procedures. In this process, we have collaborated with partner NGOs and Ministries of Health. Our $100-per-eye operations are 100% successful with no problems.
Hearing Aid in Palestine/Jordan
UMR partnered with Community Rehabilitation Centre for the Disabled/Gaza camp (CRCD) – UNRWA. Our aim is to integrate disabled people into their communities. Also, we are trying to improve their living conditions. The center assisted UMR with its local program team and project need assessment. Phonak Jordan performed all medical exams, measurements, and modeling before distributing the hearing devices and gave UMR a considerable discount. It offered 2 years of device maintenance and monitoring in Jordan.
UMR’s Hearing Aid project helps Palestinian refugees in Gaza/Jerash camp and Syrian refugees in random camps in Al-Mafraq. We have helped people with no health benefits and social security numbers.
Lastly
When thousands of people in a community suffer from health issues, it can be nearly impossible for a society to grow and become self-sustainable. At UMR, we believe that in order to improve the quality of life in a community, everyone must have access to primary healthcare. That’s why we have launched this cataract & hearing aid mission.
As we continue our mission to help beneficiaries, we will be providing free cataract surgeries and hearing aids to as many people as possible.
