Remember Hellen? She's one of our former pupils suffering with extremely limited eyesight, who had to go off to a specialist school. She’s been back on holiday, but with school re-opening, staff member Tracy took her back to school as she cannot travel alone. She is in year P2 now and is doing well academically.
Hellen came to us when she was just six years old and already suffering with eyesight problems. She’d had an eye infection in one eye – something which could have easily been solved with some eye ointment. Instead she was taken to the local witch doctor who rubbed herbs directly onto both eyeballs. She immediately went blind in one eye and had reduced sight in the other. Hellen’s a pretty determined kid and was still desperate to go to school so we decided to bring her onto the Child of Hope programme.
To start with she was managing quite well, but gradually the scarring on her seeing eye worsened. After many appointments with local eye surgeons around eastern Uganda, it became clear that there was nothing that could be done to save her sight and Child of Hope didn’t have the facilities or expertise to be able to give Hellen the help she really needed.
So we arranged for her to be sponsored to attend a school for visually impaired children (in Soroti – two hours drive from Mbale) where we were impressed with the facilities and the kindness that was on offer there. She quickly made lots of new friends and is really enjoying her new school. The matron who looks after the children in the boarding home is sweet and gentle – a great mother for her while she’s away from home. We visit her regularly and are very happy with the arrangement.
