How far would USD 65 go to ensure that a little girl child achieves her dream of growing up to be a wonderful teacher? A lifetime, we are confident! The USD 65 which kindly souls from across the world put aside to express their solidarity with ORBIS’s cause, has ensured that this little girl has every reason to believe that she will metamorphosize into the woman of her dreams.

This is a story of a 7 year old Nepali girl named Yog Maya Thapa, who lives in the tiny village of Gurauli in the Rupandehi district of Nepal and dreamt of becoming a very good teacher when she would grow up. Yog Maya Thapa comes from an economically challenged background. Her father is a poor farmer who is unable to provide for his family with the earnings from the farm.

When we explored the family history of Yog Maya, we found that her father had had a tough emotional life. Due to sheer poverty, his first wife abandoned him and their 4 children and married somebody else. "The decision by my earlier wife was really unfortunate" says Lal Bahadur Thapa, Yog Maya's father, who still remembers the days when he had to single-handedly take care of 4 small kids besides attending to his field work.  He had a very hard and challenging time. He was just not able to devote enough to time to either of the responsibilities. If he looked after his kids, he was unable to go for his field work and there was no earning. Other way round, if he worked all day in the fields, he was sick with worry about the children who were all alone at home without anyone to look after them. He says "I reluctantly had to go for second marriage". The difficult situation he thought justified his taking a second wife, despite the economic hardships.

His second wife bore him 3 more children. Yog Maya is the first born of his second wife. She was born at home after a full term pregnancy. The pregnancy itself was quite difficult. Yog Maya’s mother constantly suffered from fevers and stomach aches. Too poor to consult a doctor, they tried self medication and even purchased some medicines to cure her illnesses from a nearby medical store.

Lal Bahadur confesses he had noticed that Yog Maya’s eyes were not right during birth. But he did not know that the not-so-normal eyes were a problem or caused difficulty in seeing for his child. He understood that she had serious vision disorder only when she went to school. Now, he conjectures, “Perhaps, the medicines her mother had during her difficult pregnancy are the cause of her eye problems”.

Surprisingly, Yog Maya never complained of poor vision till she went to school. She was hardly able to see what the other children could. Currently studying in Class 2, she would often come right up to the blackboard to discern what was written on the board. Observing her, her teacher knew the girl had some serious vision problems. Moreover, she was a bright child and yet was unable to keep pace with the rest of the class. The teacher immediately informed Lal Bahadur about Yog Maya’s poor vision and suggested that she be taken to an eye hospital for a checkup. As fate would have it, nobody in the family took her complaints seriously. With nine mouths to feed, Lal Bahadur Thapa was too busy earning a living and had no time to address any issues that would escalate his expenses. Such were his constraints.

When we asked Lal Bahadur the reasons for not taking Yog Maya to the hospital, he said, "We do not have any local health worker in our village, the near by hospital is around 70 km far and we need to walk for more than an hour to get the bus to the hospital; even then it is not sure whether we get the bus service or not. Moreover, I did not have money, not even for medical treatment". His financial situation had forced him to turn a blind eye to his daughter’s problems.

With no medical intervention, Yog Maya's vision kept deteriorating. Soon she began to miss her classes. With her decreasing attendance, her childhood dream of becoming a good school teacher began to diminish.  

It is believed that there is a heavenly body that looks after and is kind to each human being. And there is a special day in each person’s life that validates this belief. A special day finally dawned on Yog Maya as well. On the 10th May 2005, as a part of its outreach activities, a school eye screening programme was organized by Shree Rana Ambika Shah Eye Hospital at Lumbini Primary School of Maanpakadi VDC (Village Development Committee). Fortunately, this was the same school where Yog Maya was studying and that particular day, she was attending school. The Ophthalmic Assistant deputed for the programme was surprised when he worked up Yog Maya for her vision test. When her left eye was closed she could see what was written on the top line of the vision chart with her right eye, from a distance of 6 feet, while a normal sighted person can see the top line from a distance of 60 feet! The vision of her left eye was worse. She could only see the top line from a distance of 5 feet.

Yog Maya was taken through a detailed eye examination and it was confirmed that she was suffering from congenital cataract. Immediately, her parents were summoned and informed about her poor visual status. It was impressed upon them that she was in urgent need of a surgery at the near by eye hospital.

Once again brought face to face with the bitter truth of Yog Maya’s vision problems, Lal Bahadur and his wife were extremely worried and depressed. Lal Bahadur quietly related to the team from the hospital that he was too poor to afford any kind of treatment for his child, forget a surgery which was bound to cost a lot.

Convinced that Yog Maya was a deserving candidate, the counselor at the camp told Lal Bahadur and his wife about the pediatric eye care project running at the Shri Rana Ambika Shah Eye Hospital (SRASEH), with the financial and technical support of an international blindness prevention NGO, ORBIS International. He was also told that the project would help him avail the necessary surgery for his daughter and convinced him to at once visit the hospital.

This time around, Lal Bahadur consciously worked at taking his daughter to the hospital. Five days later, on the 15th of May 2005, he arrived with Yog Maya at SRASEH to get her eyes operated upon. They came directly to the project office for the necessary financial support to get the cataract removed. Armed with the assurance that the maximum support possible would be extended to them through the ORBIS project, they took Yog Maya for a second round of confirmatory examinations. Congenital cataract in both her eyes was confirmed and she was admitted to the hospital. Dr Manoj Sharma who had witnessed several such surgeries by renowned ORBIS Volunteer Medical Professionals aboard the Flying Eye Hospital during its recent visit to Kolkata,  decided to go for the cataract surgery with IOL implantation in her left eye because vision of left eye was lesser than the right eye. On the 18th May, Yog Maya’s left eye was operated upon by Dr Manoj Sharma. Two days from the surgery, she was discharged from the hospital, but not before recording her post operative vision. On closing her right eye, the left eye could see the top line of the vision chart from a distance of 6 feet--an improvement of a miserly 1 foot. Things were bound to get better since the best visual acuity possible due to surgical intervention is not attained immediately after surgery but depending upon follow up care takes at least 3-6 months to manifest.

As committed, the entire surgical expenses of Yog Maya were sponsored by the project. At this point in time, Lal Bahadur seemed only a wee bit relaxed. His major worry was the final surgical outcome.

Bhumi Kala Bhandari, Pediatric Counselor at SRASEH knows that it takes a lot of persuasion for the lesser privileged, to avail medical treatment or surgery to improve vision or eliminate blindness. However, getting the patients to the hospital is just the first step of the treatment. A good visual acuity comes from rigorous follow up with the hospital to ensure that the eye is mending well and has not contracted any infection. Motivating the surgically treated patients to come in for follow up visits is an even bigger challenge.

Her three month ORBIS sponsored training in pediatric counseling at the world famous Lions Aravind Institute of Community Ophthalmology, as part of the pediatric project running at SRASEH has taught her all this and more. She says, “Cases such as these give me an opportunity to put into action what so ever I have learnt during my counseling training at LAICO. It is extremely exciting and I hope with time I will be able to offer even better counseling.’

Before issuing the discharge orders, Bhumi Kala spoke to Lal Bahadur and his wife at length. She explained to them how through the surgery the cataract from her left eye was removed and how the lens implantation would help her see well. She gave them the medicines that needed to be applied as well as orally consumed, stressing on the dosages and the techniques for local application of medicines. Finally she told them about the importance of follow up visits and how they bring out the best visual acuity post surgery. She requested them to bring Yog Maya for a follow up visit after 15 days.

Days passed by. The counseling ultimately showed its color. On the 16th day from her surgery, Yog Maya accompanied her father for the follow up visit to SRASEH. This time, both the father and the daughter wore excited expressions on the face. The vision test, of course, added a glint to their eyes and a wide grin on their faces. The left eye vision of the sweet angel had increased to 6/18--she was able to see easily from the distance of 6 feet what a normal sighted person could see from a distance of 18 feet—a vast, vast improvement.

Getting up to leave Yog Maya's father was extremely emotional. A quite, soft-spoken person, he could only mumble a moist-eyed "Thank you".

Three months later a team from the hospital went over to Yog Maya’s house to see her progress and the change in the personality of the little one was phenomenal. The manner with which she held her ground while playing with her friends was heart-warming. Confidence levels were up and she had renewed determination to make it to school each day. After all she really wanted to be a teacher—much like her own class teacher whom she emulated!

Each one of us at SRASEH are very pleased with the positive change that has been brought in the life of Yog Maya and feel privileged to have played a part in restoring her vision. Bhumi Kala is confident that the family would come back at the right time for the surgery of the right eye. Yog Maya can now be regular with her studies. We, on behalf of ORBIS and the entire project team at SRASEH, would like to express our best wishes to dear Yog Maya, who we are sure would one day become a great, much loved, successful teacher.