Luzi is a fertile, expansive land, sitting along the vast Henga Valley, west of South Rukuru River in Malawi. Evineti Munthali, a 76-year-old widow, is a native of the area. She wakes up around 5 a.m. every day to work in her garden and finishes around 9 a.m. when the sun starts getting more intense. She plucks some vegetables, which are to be cooked as relish, collects firewood and heads home to prepare lunch for herself and her 13-year-old grandchild. After eating lunch, she tends to other domestic duties such as drawing water for the homestead, pounding groundnuts into flour and washing.
But her usual routine took a catastrophic turn in 2020 when she partially lost her eyesight. After living with this condition for almost two years, she says, “Losing sight in one of my eyes made my life very difficult. I survived those two years by the grace of God because work at home and in the garden still had to be done. It wasn’t easy, and for me, it was also very dangerous,” she recounts.
She shudders as she recollects an unforgettable day. “I had gone to the garden as usual. This day, I worked up to mid-day. I then went to collect firewood,” she pauses, and continues: “As I was gathering some sticks, I went to pick up a big, dry stick and due to my poor eyesight, I didn’t realize it was a snake. It was a big snake! What if it was a mamba or something? I cried all the way home. I went a good number of days without going to the garden. I was very much afraid. If that snake had bitten me, I could have died.”
Evinet Munthali smiles in appreciation
On October 6, 2021, the SightFirst Project outreach vehicle, equipped with a speaker system, informed community members that medical personnel from Mzuzu Central Hospital would be conducting an eye screening exercise at Luzi Health Centre a week later. “To me, that message was heavenly,” sighs Munthali. “I couldn’t wait! When the screening day came, I was one of the first to arrive.” Munthali was then diagnosed with cataracts and was offered to be taken to Mzuzu Central Hospital for surgery, which she did not hesitate to accept. “I can now see much better than before. And another good thing is that all the services were free to us. We were told that the project paid for everything,” Munthali says.
Munthali is among many of the recipients benefiting from the SightFirst Project, funded by the Lions Club International Foundation (LCIF) and Latter-Day Saints Charities, through District 412-B, the Mzuzu Lions Club and Mzuzu Central Hospital. SightFirst Grants support high-quality, equitable and sustainable eye care projects. This four-year, life-changing intervention at the Mzuzu Central Hospital aims to address vision impairments within local communities. The project, which has received funding of over US$500,000, provided modern medical equipment, renovated the Eye Department and trains medical professionals, such as nurses, cataract surgeons and ophthalmologists, with a goal to perform a total of 5,225 cataract surgeries for local residents.
Through projects like this, Lions continue to build on their legacy of vision care, offering restored eyesight one person at a time.
Bittiya Mpira is the Project Media Officer for the Mzuzu Lions Club in Malawi, Africa.
