Al-Shifa Trust awarded USF IT project for the visually impaired
Monday, May 26, 2008 7:06
Al-Shifa Trust Eye hospital Rawalpindi has been awarded a special project titled ‘Enabling Persons with Disabilities to Use Telecom Services’ to increase accessibility of IT and telecom for people with visual impairment.
The project was launched with the help of Universal Service Fund (USF).
Ministry of Information Technology celebrated the World Telecommunication and Information Technology day last week with the theme ’Connecting Persons with Disabilities: ICT Opportunities for all’ with special focus on the disabled community in collaboration with International Telecommunication union and ICT equipment manufacturers for obtaining special ICT equipment that are being used in the developed world.
In this connection, proposals were invited from organizations dealing with disabilities in the country out of them two organization were selected and awarded the project under USF.
Al-Shifa Tust Eye Hospital is one of the organizations, awarded the project. The project was awarded keeping in view the profound services of Al-Shifa Trust and their fight against blindness.” said Chief Executive Officer USF, Parvez Iftikhar.
He said that the project aimed at expanding and upgrading the Low Vision and Rehabilitation center at Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital.
Under the projects Al-Shifa will expand and upgrade its existing Low Vision and rehabilitation Center at its Rawalpindi hospital and at the same time replicate the same facility in its Kohat and Sukkur Hospital.
Talking to the media persons, President Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital Lt Gen (rtrd) Jahan Dad Khan said, that Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital is the WHO collaborating Centre working for prevention and cure of blindness. He said that Al-Shifa Trust established its Low Vision rehabilitation centre for the first time in Pakistan in 1993 and since then has been providing tertiary specialist services for referrals from all over the country.
The specialty service performs about 1,000-1,500 low vision assessment every year and has prescribed or dispensed over 3,600 low vision aids. He observed that approximately 1,000 new cases of low vision are referred every year to Al-Shifa’s Low Vision Clinic at Rawalpindi.
The existing set up of Low Vision Rehabilitation Centre in Rawalpindi requires up gradation to facilitate the LV patients with the latest techniques and equipment. The experts in information technology and computer engineering have devised new software through which the low vision and blind people can be trained well. We wish to introduce such software and IT related equipments here in our set up.” Said President Al-Shifa Trust
Based on these objectives, Al-Shifa is now developing a comprehensive centre for the visual rehabilitation along with all modern devices and equipments to help the visually impaired people.
He further said that Al-Shifa will also to establish a low vision centre at Kohat, Quetta and Muzaffarabad on the lines of Rawalpindi and Sukkur Low Vision Units.
Universal Service Fund Launches Project for Persons with Disabilities | Social Bridges says:
May 29th, 2008 at 6:27 am
[...] online also has detailed coverage of this here with, here is an exceprt from their story on what the CEO of USF Parvez Iftikhar had to say [...]