CONTINUED SUPPORT

Delegates attending the XXXII Congress of the ESCRS in London can support the society’s charities by making a donation online when they register. A total of €35,435 was donated to Orbis and Oxfam in 2013.

“Our support of Orbis and Oxfam continues to be very rewarding,” said Dr Roberto Bellucci, president of the ESCRS, “and it is a very important part of the society’s activities.”

ESCRS is supporting Orbis in its work with the Gondar University Hospital to establish a Child Eye Health Tertiary Facility (CEHTF) for North West Ethiopia from 2011 to 2015 and the development of a paediatric eye-care team.

The society is also supporting Oxfam’s Water and Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion (also known as WASH) programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Self-sustaining programmes

The ESCRS has been supporting both charities since 2010 following an initiative agreed by the ESCRS Board under the presidency of Dr Jose Guell. The decision to support the two charities was taken as the Board felt it was not enough to address the problems of global blindness simply as surgeons and that they also needed to address the challenge of supporting communities by helping them to develop self-sustaining programmes.

“When we operate on patients with cataracts in the developing world, we reach out to those who have survived long enough to develop a cataract,” said Dr Guell in an interview with EuroTimes in 2010. “But other help is urgently required such as food and shelter and projects to help local communities to sustain themselves.”

Doctors from the Gondar University Hospital who attended the XXX Congress of the ESCRS in Milan in 2012 at the invitation of the ESCRS, will also attend in London.

Delegates who want to find out more about the supported projects can visit the Orbis and Oxfam Booth during the congress.

Further details are also available at: http://www.escrs.org/charitable-donations/default.asp.