To be totally   blind is the most difficult condition for a person to experience. When this visual impairment afflicts a frail elderly woman, steeped in poverty, living in a tribal hamlet, the agony and despair is unimaginable.

Mrs.Mannangatti is one such unfortunate woman, hailing for a tribal hamlet in northern Tamilnadu. She was totally blind in both her eyes due to cataract for the past one year. Earlier, with minimal vision, she worked as an agricultural labour on the dry fields around her village. With cataract gradually increasing in both her eyes, her life became dark. She had to forgo her meager income out of the field work and she became totally dependant on her daughter.

It is sad that illiteracy and poverty have made these people suffer in silence from a very easily curable eye disease like cataract.  Inaccessibility to quality eye care is yet another major restrain for them.

Life changed for this 65 year old woman on 8th march 2003. Sankara Eye Society, Coimbatore conducted an outreach camp close to her village. Mannangatti’s daughter took her to the camp where she was selected for surgery and brought to the base hospital at Coimbatore by the Sankara team. At the hospital she was evaluated and provided with the state of the art cataract surgery with intraocular lens implant for her left eye.

Now she was able to see not only the doctors and staff of Sankara but also her daughter. It is difficult for us to think of life without the gift of vision with which we are endowed and it is our pleasant duty to help those deprived along with our partners.

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