Posted Date: March 23, 2002
Helen Keller International Fights Trachoma By Tackling Women’s Poverty, Illiteracy
Think of a world where you are denied access. Where basic health information is readily available in brochures, but you don’t have the ability to read. Where you cannot see a doctor because, as a woman, you are not allowed to travel alone. Where you are unable to take advantage of vocational training. That’s the world faced by a vast majority of women in Morocco’s poorest rural areas, where 89 percent of women are illiterate.
Research indicates that literacy, poverty and gender are inextricably linked to trachoma—the leading infectious cause of preventable blindness in the world. According to Dr. Fatima-Zohra Akalay, Helen Keller International Morocco country representative, “Trachoma is closely linked to poverty, isolation, unhealthy living conditions, lack of potable water. Also, women are not ‘tooled’ to be receptive to hygiene and trachoma control messages.”
The Morocco functional literacy project of HKI is geared toward enabling women to read and write — giving them a better chance to overcome poverty and other forms of cultural and social exclusion. In cooperation with 35 local NGOs, the Moroccan government and international donors (USAID, the International Trachoma Initiative and the Conrad Hilton Foundation), HKI implemented the literacy project in the southern province of Zagora, from 1999 to 2001. As a result, 8,200 women were able to achieve functional literacy. That meant they were able to assimilate health knowledge, understand nutrition and trachoma control, and improve their health conditions.
Meet Fatima Ait Dad Ali, who was born in 1960 in a small oasis in Zagora Province. Her eyes began hurting during her teens, but she did not pay attention to the problem. Over the years, as she worked as a maid in Rabat and later in a school, her eyes became red and swollen from the dust, chalk, and cleaning products. Friends suggested using pomades and khôl — makeup Moroccan women use for eye care — to arrest her painful condition, but those didn’t help. Her eyes hurt even more, and she could not close them without suffering.
Fatima’s eyelashes began turning inward and repeatedly scratched the surface of her cornea. She tried a lotion made of a local plant called isfersquel that was supposed to help, but it didn’t, and she began to pull out her eyelashes. The more eyelashes she pulled out, the more she suffered.
In August 1999, when Fatima was almost 40, she heard that a health agent who was trained by HKI in Agdez would be conducting a screening trichiasis campaign. She decided to be there. On April 4, 2000, she was screened and had surgery.
“I will never forget that day,” exclaimed Fatima. “I cannot find words to express my gratitude to members of HKI who act so humanely, whose objective is to improve our quality of life trying to find solutions to our problems and relieve our pains. All I can say is eyes are priceless.”
There are thousands of stories like Fatima’s in Morocco, situations that Helen Keller International is addressing one by one.
Thanks to a prestigious award from the World Bank in January 2002, the Morocco-based project received $150,000 to continue to integrate literacy and sustainable development. A vocational training project will soon begin with 1,500 of the women who have achieved functional literacy.
That project will teach women farming and gardening skills, as well as providing information on trachoma prevention and improving environmental hygiene. It will also provide micro-funding to enable women to be employed and earn incomes. The garden skills project is aimed at both generating income and improving nutrition in the community.
“The programs of Helen Keller Worldwide,” says John Palmer, the agency’s president, “treat the whole person. That is why the Morocco-based project, focusing on literacy, health, and sustainable development, is so important. We are closing the gap between literacy, poverty and preventable blindness by providing women living in the poorest areas an opportunity for livelihood.”
Helen Keller International, an InterAction member, is the international division of New York-based Helen Keller Worldwide. For more information, see www.hkworld.org. n
Barbara Hodgson is a communications consultant for Helen Keller Worldwide.
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