A cornea donation campaign started by F. George Kannanthanam, an Indian Catholic priest, four years ago has evolved into the world’s largest eye-donation program and hundreds of thousands of donors have joined the program across five nations. In the past four years, the movement has spread to hundreds of voluntary organizations, dioceses and religious movements in U.S, China, India, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
On World Sights Day on October 12, tens of thousands of people- including youth, Archbishops, Bishops, priests, nuns –in 250 cities in these five countries took part in “blind walk” program. As reported by ucanews.com, His Excellency Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi, who took part in the “blind walk” program, remarked that “Eyes are the greatest gift that can be given to any human being and it cost nothing and we have been trying to spread his message to as many people as possible through parishes and other institutions.”
The objective of the blind walk was not only to motivate people to donate their eyes but also to create vision ambassadors to serve as links between families of deceased people and India’s eye bank.
