My strong commitment is to change my country, Cambodia into a better place. To accomplish this commitment I need to take many opportunities that benefit others and myself to share knowledge. Khmer Sight Foundation (KSF) and I went to Kompong Speu province. The KSF helps to eradicate avoidable blindness in Cambodia and improve vision and eye care and restore the gift of sight to many thousands of Cambodians. When I arrived Kompong Speu in Camkid school I got so excited to help my beautiful Cambodia people. There were over 100 people a lot of elders and some kids. Those people want to check their eyes and improve vision to see the world clearly. What we did was that first is testing their eyes and if they can’t see well we moved them to the next station to check what the problems they have with the eyes. Then check the blood pressure. The main focus KSF is the cataract and pterygium. My job was to write and gather all of the information people that comes (name, age, where are they from, and the eyes problems they have). Other hardest jobs are to convince and make the people in the community trust KSF to do their eyes surgery. Most of the elders need to do the surgery because their eyes have the cataract and pterygium. Khmer Sight Foundation decide to bring the first 10 people in the community to go and do the surgery. Some people decided to do the surgery and sadly some of them decide not to go. This is because some of them are busy taking care of the kids or wasted their time, they scared to do surgery, some of them didn’t feel comfortable to come, to Phnom Penh with strange people.
There were six people came with Liger students and KSF people to do the surgery. The grandma that came with us she felt nervous and not so comfortable because it is her first time. My friend and I tried to comfort her to make her feel better, and tell her that these doctors are very professional. The grandma named Nhok MIT, 69 years old. She already lost her left eyes and her right eye have cataract problem. I went and asked her she said “I lost my left eye two years ago. Before I lost my left eyesight, this eye has a problem. I just went to the random pharmacy to check my eye, and they give them medicine.” The more she drank medicine it gets worse and worse. Her family condition is so poor and can’t afford and come to the specialist. So the grandma gave up and have nothing to do with her eye, the result she lost her left eyesight. She also stated that “Before I lost my left eye I took care of my rice field and do farming every day because I need to find the money for my family.” Sadly when she lost her eyesight she has too abundant her work because of it so hard for her. One of the people that work for KSF said, the grandma made a right decision to come and do the surgery for her eye, and we help to change her entire life because if she not comes and did the surgery she will lose her right eye. This means her both eyes will blind. So before Nhok Mit (grandma) came to do the surgery it is so tough for her to make decisions because when she comes to Phnom Penh no one takes care of her and have a kid at home that she needs to take care. We let her and her family decide one of the KSF workers and I told her if she does the surgery 95% she will get success, 4 percents will have damage and 1% will completely blind. Lastly, I went on the bus and then I saw her sitting in front of me with her son to go and do the surgery. I am so proud to volunteer with Khmer Sight Foundation to help Cambodian and share my knowledge with them.
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