Al-Shifa Trust brings artificial vision for the blind to Pakistan

Rawalpindi : Al-Shifa Trust on Tuesday announced to donate artificial vision devices to blind or partially sighted students with outstanding educational records. This device will also be provided to blind citizens who want to excel in their fields.

With this wearable reader, anyone can read texts and books, morning paper, recognize loved ones, shop, and enjoy a better quality of life by living more independently. Blindness will no more be a disability in personal development, said Al Shifa Trust President Major General (r) Rehmat Khan, while presenting first MyEye OrCam device as a gift to Syed Sardar Ahmed Pirzada, the first blind Journalist of Pakistan in a ceremony held in Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital.

He said that this device will not only make people with different levels of vision loss independent but also will make them useful citizens. Al-Shifa Trust is the first to bring this device to Pakistan and in response donors are coming out from different areas of the country to sponsor this device for people who are visually impaired but have the potential to reach new heights, he said.

Speaking on the occasion, President Al-Shifa Foundation of North America Tahir Zafar said that we aim to empower the visually impaired. We facilitate patients with irreversible vision loss in the Light House, a rehabilitation centre working to help patients overcome the challenges of low vision and blindness.

To further improve facilities at the Light House, we have acquired OrCam MyEye at a cost of five thousand dollars, he added.

He informed that the device is compatible with all levels of vision loss. It also works great for people with reading difficulty or reading fatigue. The devices empower people with vision challenges and allow them to access visual information.

He added it is a revolutionary voice-activated device that can instantly read to you text from a book, smart phone screen or any other surface, recognize faces, help you shop on your own, work more efficiently, and live a more independent life. It conveys visual information audibly, in real-time and offline. This reader is being used by tens of thousands of people across the globe, in more than 40 countries and 20 languages, with users ranging in age from six to 100 years.