The Lions club of Tokai together with Jonga Trust has established a new eye care program.  The eye care program focuses on eye screening and supply of spectacles for young children under the age of six, living in disadvantaged areas of Cape Town, South Africa.

The program identifies the young children who are in need of eye care such as refractive error or eye pathology. The program ensures the children are refracted by qualified Optometrists, trained in paediatric care and supply the appropriate prescription spectacles.  In cases where eye pathology is present, the children are referred for specialist paediatric care to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital Eye Unit. At the same time, eye health education on the importance of caring for their eyes, is given in their home language.

To date 1050 children have been screened and of these a 125 children was refracted by Optometrists and given spectacles by Jonga Trust.  Another 7 of these children was diagnosed with eye pathology and was referred to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital eye unit for specialist eye care.

Jonga Trust in association with the Lions club of Bergvliet had an eye health screening day for the preschool children at the Philippi children’s centre on 25 October 2011. Jonga Trust screened two classes, the Grade R and the Nursery class (4-5year old). “The two Jonga Trust eye screeners, Eubertina and Gavin, were fantastic with the children”, remarked Rose Saville, president of the Bergvliet Lion club.

Fifty children in total were screened for visual problems where each child was checked for squints, retinal disease and visual acuity.

On the day no child required glasses, but one little girl in Grade R was diagnosed wit congenital cataracts. The staff members of Phillipi Children's Centre was also screened and one person was referred by Di Powell to an eye clinic for further eye treatment.

Lions Club of Franschhoek and Jonga Trust ran a rural farm eye screening initiative that took place in Franschhoek for the rural farm worker community on the 12 July 2011. The Lions club of Franschhoek sponsored the initiative which allowed the Jonga Trust community based eye workers and volunteers to screen 207 rural farm workers and their children.

The results of the screening showed that 98 farm workers needed to have their eyes tested for spectacles, 85 needed reading glasses, which were handed out to them on the day and 3 farm workers were referred for an eye specialist treatment.

The high hit rate of 91% farm workers needing glasses and eye care, just again highlights the tremendous need for eye care in the rural areas of South Africa.

The trustees of Jonga Trusts would like to personally thank the members of the Lions Club of Franschhoek for their moral and financial support with the eye screening initiative.

On requested from the Athlone Baptist Church, Jonga Trust provided eye screening services for their elderly members on the 12 of June 2011.

On the day, the Jonga Trust community based screeners was met with a warm reception commitee at the church hall.  Soon however, under the supervision of Di Powell a registered ophthalmic nurse, the screeners got busy and managed to screened a 102 elderly members from the Athlone Baptist Church.  Of those screened, 42 people needed to see an optometrist for glasses and  21 people were referred to an Ophthalmologist for further medical treatment.

To provide these eye care services to the under privilege people of the Western Cape, Jonga Trust relies heavily on the financial support of philanthropic organisation like the Lions Clubs International.  In particular the Baptist Church seniors eye screening day was made possible by the assistance of Lions Tokai club and Lions District 410A.

To everyone involved in the project we at Jonga Trust, would like to say a warm Ndiyabulela and Impilo! (Thank you and good health!)