Dr Nabila Radi
Some of my cousins from the southern part of the United States refer to
family reunions as opportunities for us to “love on” each other. This is
an appropriate description of the work of Sudanese ophthalmologist Dr.
Nabila Radi, “mother” of Together for Sudan’s enormously popular Eye
Care Outreach. Begun in the squatter settlements outside Khartoum in
2002, this project has benefitted thousands of people, including
changing the lives of hundreds by cataract removal. Since September 2006
the TfS Eye Care Project has also been working in the Nuba Mountains
where it has been funded through Together for Sudan by the Austrian
charity Light for the World.
Dr. Nabila’s concern for destitute, displaced and outcast people is at
the heart of the Eye Care outreach. Now widely praised, the project has
benefitted thousands of poor and destitute adults and children, many of
whom had not previously seen a medical doctor. Without Dr. Nabila’s
ability to recognize illness and disease, I’m certain that many more
displaced Sudanese, including children, would have died. Since this
Together for Sudan project began I have often trailed around behind Dr.
Nabila, usually in the wretched squatter settlements outside Khartoum,
and understood from the start that she never does things half way. But
before that I, too, was a “blind” person and she had to nag me for at
least two years before I gave in.
“Together for Sudan is an educational charity, not a medical charity,” I
used to tell Dr. Nabila when she urged me to set up an eye care
outreach. “We have to specialize because we can’t do everything.” Her
reply was swift: “So how are people going to learn to read when they
can’t see?”
The need for eye care treatment is immense.
Later, when the outreach had been established and I was worried about
rising costs, I asked myself why Dr. Nabila didn’t stick to eye care
rather than spend so much time advising and medicating people with skin
ailments, head lice, chronic diarrhea, ulcers and other ailments which
frequently accompany poverty and malnutrition. When I worried about the
cost she replied, “But I’m the only doctor most of these people have
ever seen and perhaps will ever see!” Case closed.
By now you will have guessed that it’s very difficult, if not
impossible, to say no to Dr. Nabila. When I finally managed to raise
some money to do as she demanded, the Eye Care Outreach quickly become
one of Together for Sudan’s most widely praised projects. But this
project has an unfair advantage. The Literacy Project must allow many
months for women to learn to read and the University Scholarships
Project requires four or five years before graduation. On the other
hand, cataract removal replicates a miracle and results in an instant
calling down of blessing on those who helped bring about that miracle.
Even those of us who just visit the project share in that blessing.
How can I describe the gratitude of a woman whose child’s “crossed eyes”
have been corrected, a child whose glasses enable him to see the
blackboard, a mother and children whose trachoma has been treated, an
elderly man who can see again when the bandages come off the day after
cataract surgery?
Needs go beyond just eye care.
Sadly, shortly after the Eye Care Outreach expanded to South Kodofan
some two years ago, it became clear that Dr. Nabila’s health and
“traditional size” would not permit her to work in remote areas. She was
devastated and tried to insist but all of us who love her stood firm.
From now on other ophthalmologists working with Together for Sudan will
have the privilege of visiting remote areas of the Nuba Mountains.
Meanwhile, Dr. Nabila continues her life enhancing work in Khartoum and
its environs -- and not just through the TfS Eye Care Outreach and her
own clinic. A few years ago she told me that I must come with her to a
leper colony which she visits regularly in Mayo, a settlement for
displaced persons outside Khartoum. But TfS doesn’t do leprosy, I
pleaded. “You must visit,” Nabila insisted, “if only for the blessing.”
And so, of course, I went. When two elderly women with no hands raised
their arms in thanksgiving for a visitor, I was fully rewarded. Another
part of the blessing was to learn that the American Leprosy Mission was
deeply involved and that, this time, Dr. Nabila didn’t need to make me
“do something”.
Wherever she goes, Dr. Nabila Radi is an inspiration and a healer. I am
blessed to know her and TfS is blessed to work with her. She and I share
the belief that all Sudanese are beloved by God and serving them puts us
in a premier place of blessing. Once, when I was living in Tunisia, I
described Together for Sudan’s Eye Care Outreach to an internationally
known Tunisian ophthalmologist.
“Dr. Nabila!” the distinguished doctor said. And his face lit up with
the same joy I feel when I see her.
Lillian Craig Harris.
A slide show of our recent eye care outreach in Lagawa, South
Kordofan in October 2010
What you can do: Donations in any amount are much
appreciated. But please consider whether you are able to support work
such as this – and contribute to maintaining peace in Sudan – by
providing regular donations. Regular donations allow us to plan ahead
and work more effectively
£15 ($26.19) will buy a child a pair of
prescription glasses and £50 ($87.30) will pay for cataract surgery and
follow up for her grandmother.
Contact us now :-
enquiries@togetherforsudan