The future is bright, but first they have to see it... ( Pt. II) THE CRYSTAL VISION project

Jumoke Balogun and I are presently running a campaign that will help a lot of blind people in the country and although ‘February 14’ (and God of course) has a lot to do with it, there’s more to the story.

Jummie (that's what we all call jumoke) was involved in a fire accident when she was only year and 11months old, and the accident left her facially scarred and partially blind. She grew up with a battered self-esteem, and concluding that she would amount to nothing in life because of her limitations, she avoided mixing up with people especially because of fear of rejection. But thank God for motivational books and autobiographies that taught jumoke a lot of things while she was growing up. Jumoke started acting out things she’d read and heard, and now Jumoke is truly one of the most beautiful people I’ve come across. Her burns are still there, but she’s confident, outgoing, intelligent, and an example of the fact that ‘true beauty comes from within’. As for her partial blindness, she had a surgery in the UK when she was 14 but still needed another - corneas are unavailable in these parts and surgery has to be carried out in the Uk, or India with one cornea costing $2000 (excluding surgery fee). Finally, in September this year, Jumoke (along with 6 others) was able to undergo surgery, right here in Lagos State, courtesy Lion’s club.

The Facts

• No matter how much money a patient has to work on his/her cornea, if there are no cornea donors, there’ll be no corneas to use.

• Africans don’t believe in cornea donation because according to them (and the re-incarnation / rebirth impression), the eyes will be needed in the next life. But the truth is that the eyes are the first part of the body that decay after death (medically proven)

• A lot of people who cannot see, are not necessarily blind. You can either be partially blind, which means that you can undergo surgery, or fully blind, which means that you can’t.

• The ultimate blind test: if a torch light is flashed before a ‘blind’ person’s eyes and he/she can see/feel a ray of light, then there’s hope. But if not, surgery cannot help.

While at the blind school – on February 14 – and taking pictures of the children, I noticed three boys who were obviously close friends and had eyes that looked pretty damaged, jerked when I took their picture.

 It was then it occurred to me that they must have felt the flash from my camera and the only explanation was that a lot of these kids pronounced blind were actually not. There’s just no awareness. Millions of us don’t even know there’s any such thing as cornea donations. I didn’t know until some months ago.
Jumoke has a degree in mass communication, anchors a show ‘What’s your excuse?’, and is engaged to be married hopefully, next year, and even with all her strength and positivity, I’m sure a lot wouldn’t have been possible if she’d been blind. Someone’s corneas helped her, and she’s going to help someone with hers because she’s donated them already. I’m picking up my ‘cornea donation’ form this week, so that when I’m gone, someone can find my corneas useful. We need to spread the word because The future is bright, but first they have to see it…
p.s: on the 11th of december, a blind school is having their convocation and lots of visitors will be attending, so we - Jummie, Nike (who was blind for 13 years but got a cornea surgery in september) and I) plan to speak at the event. first of all, we need as many people as possible to wear our awareness tees, and also help with networking (speaking to as these visitors)... will let y'all in on our plans.

xoxo