Restore sight for children like Mariya, who are living in poverty with cataracts.
Your donation DOUBLED this Easter
Easter Appeal: Your Donation Doubled
Nobody should be blind just because they are poor.
Mariya, 6, and Ikilima, 3, from rural Nigeria, West Africa, were born blind because of cataracts in both of their eyes.
Their mother, Balkisu, explained, “Before they turned 40 days old, they started crying non-stop. Then a dot appeared in their eyes. By 50 days, you could see it clearly.” This dot was the white, milky film of cataracts.
For many of the most marginalised people living in the world’s poorest places, access to basic eye care is almost impossible. For Balkisu, the cost of surgery to restore her daughters’ sight was out of reach.
As they grew older, Mariya and Ikilima risked becoming permanently blind. Cataracts can prevent the proper development of the pathways between a child’s eyes and their brain. Left untreated, blindness caused by cataracts can become untreatable.
This Easter you can give sight and have your donation doubled. Donate now.
Your donation DOUBLED
This Easter, a group of CBM donors have come together, pledging to double every pound you donate, up to £70,000. This means that any gift you make today will have twice the impact.
Easter Appeal: Your Donation Doubled
Together this Easter, we can come closer to a world in which nobody is needlessly blind, and transform the lives of children like Mariya and Ikilima.
With your support, CBM is working in partnership with the ECWA Eye Hospital to provide essential eye care to families in Nigeria.
Easter Appeal: Your Donation Doubled for twice the impact.
The difference you can make
With your support, CBM and our partners are there every step of the way, from screening to identify children living with sight loss, supporting people in hard to reach places with transport to hospitals, training surgeons, and funding equipment and medication for cataract surgery to restore sight and help break the cycle of poverty and disability.
Last year an outreach team from our partner hospital in Nigeria visited Mariya and Ikilima. The children and their mother were transported to the eye hospital, and where they were diagnosed with cataracts. They needed urgent surgery to save their sight – and thanks to CBM supporters, this was made this possible.
For children like Mariya and Ikilima, your support can be the difference between lifelong blindness, and restored sight. Easter Appeal: Your Donation Doubled.
Eye Health in Nigeria
The northern region of Nigeria, where our project is based, contains the highest number of people living with blindness in the country.
A significant number of children need specialised eye care, which is unavailable in many of the countries in which we work there are very few paediatric ophthalmologists in the region.
Together, alongside local partners, we enable people living in poverty to access eye health services, including cataract surgery that as a result will restore their sight.
