Things are looking good

We have Swedish opticians here at Project Playground, and they’re really making an amazing contribution to Langa! Things are definitely going to look different when Helena, Johan, Gio and Emma from Optiker Branning in Lund are done with their work here. This lovely crew is offering all the kids free eye examinations, and thereafter free glasses to the ones with bad eyes, and apparently there are quite a lot of them! All of them have worked so hard the last week and I’m very honoured to have witnessed some of the wonders they managed to pull through. And I’m not exaggerating. We are absolutely talking about wonders here!

The children are waiting for their turn

The most impressive story is about a 20 year old boy who was put in special classes in school due to illiteracy. Everyone thought it was something with his intelligence. That he was unable to read because he was dyslectic or lacked competence. However, it also turned out that he more or less was unable to see his own finger, which is a very bad base if you want to read a book, or play football, or just get any chance to get somewhere and become something in this world. And then, in some seconds, everything changed completely; Helena examined his eyes, confirmed his defect and placed the right glasses in - and all of a sudden this boy was able to read the some of the small letters on the board! He wasn’t stupid or dyslectic at all – he just had bad eyes. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. I will always keep this story close to my heart.