The Gift of Sight

“There are none so blind as those who will not see,” so said Jonathan Swift, an Irish priest, writer and philosopher (1667-1745). For Israel, it is likely a case of opening people’s eyes to see the realities of what we do for the world…one pair of eyes at a time.

Here’s one story about how we are doing just that…

Israel to provide eye treatment for South Sudanese refugees in Kenya

For the past few months the Israel Foreign Ministry’s Center for International Cooperation (MASHAV) has been in touch with the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Nairobi offering its assistance to the South Sudanese refugees residing in Kakuma refugee camp in Northern Kenya.

The Kakuma camp, near the town of Kakuma, is located in Kenya on the road to Sudan, west of Lake Turkana and about 50 kilometers from the Sudanese border. The camp, which has been in existence for 15 years, holds about 75,000 people, mostly South Sudanese refugees. Currently UNHCR has begun a repartition program, sending refugees from the camp back to South Sudan.
Dr. Yosef Baratz, MASHAV’s project coordinator in Africa has setting up a temporary eye clinic in the camp with equipment purchased beforehand by Israel. The clinic would enable two Israeli eye doctors who would arrive on July 2, 2007 to properly operate on dozens of patients in the two-week period of their stay.

The physicians will provide consultation to local doctors.

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