'We want to eradicate preventable blindness'

Dark & Light Blind Care became a PSO member at the beginning of this year. The organisation works for the blind and the visually impaired in Africa and Asia. The foundation is active in twelve countries where it supports well over forty projects through its local partners. 'We want to eradicate preventable blindness,' says Paulien Bruijn, Dark & Light Blind Care's programme coordinator.

Blindness is preventable in 75% of cases. Some treatable diseases can lead to blindness. A good example is Trachoma, an eye disease which manifests itself through eye infections. The disease is very prevalent in, among other places, Sudan and primarily affects mothers and children. Bruijn: 'If the eye infection goes untreated, the person affected may become blind when they are older.'

Eye care

Dark & Light Blind Care's projects focus on, among other things, the prevention and treatment of eye conditions, education and vocational training for the blind and the visually impaired, but also the distribution of aids such as glasses. Bruijn explains why the organisation limits itself to Africa and Asia. 'There are not very many of us and we therefore have to focus and only tackle matters that have absolute priority.' Is there a difference between these continents? 'Asia is home to a much larger population, but eye care is better developed. Africa has a less developed eye care.'

Dark & Light Blind Care is small organisation and employs fourteen people. Nevertheless, the organisation has high ambitions. An important objective for the foundation is to eradicate preventable blindness before 2020. 'We are a member of Vision 2020, a platform of organisations and government bodies which wants to do away with preventable blindness before 2020. We support this objective.'

The foundation does more than just combat preventable blindness. Dark & Light Blind Care's activities also include the care of the handicapped. 'People with a handicap often have no access to education. They also need work. We try to assist them in these fields,' says Bruijn. But there is more: 'We also examine whether other development organisations can include people with a handicap in their ordinary vocational training, education paths or healthcare projects. We want to help Dutch organisations to include these people in their programmes.'

Young and enthusiastic

Why did Dark & Light Blind Care become a member of PSO? 'The Foundation wants to learn how to best help other organisations to include people with a handicap in their programmes,' Bruijn explains. 'Dark & Light Blind Care would like to do so together with other organisations, for example, in a learning-working path. Naturally we also support our partner organisations in the field of capacity development and PSO keeps us up to date on the latest developments in the field of capacity development.'

When two parties join forces, both often have their own expectations. What does Dark & Light Blind Care hope to gain? 'We are working on disability mainstreaming. This entails developing a training programme and tools which organisations can use to assess whether their programmes take the handicapped into account in every field. We want to utilise PSO's expertise to make disability mainstreaming a success.'

PSO has almost sixty members, each with their own expertise. What does Dark & Light Blind Care have to offer PSO members? Bruijn: 'Dark & Light Blind Care is a young, enthusiastic organisation that wants to learn. In turn, it can provide knowledge in the field of disability mainstreaming to other PSO members.'