The roots of the Deutsches Blindenhilfswerk (DBHW) go back more than fifty years to the care of war-blind people in con­vales­cent homes. In the 1980s, the organ­isa­tion adap­ted to the changed cir­cum­stances and has since focused on inter­national pro­jects in the areas of eye health and edu­cation – and there­fore fits per­fectly into our require­ments pro­file.

Link­ing the two top­ics of health and edu­cation is par­tic­ularly import­ant to us, which is why we have been award­ing schol­arships to young Kenyan women for their fur­ther train­ing as ‘Oph­thal­mic Clin­ical Officers’ (OCO) since 2023. Unthink­able in Ger­many, train­ing to become an OCO in African coun­tries relieves the pres­sure on the small num­ber of oph­thal­molo­gists: Over a period of 18 months, the pro­spect­ive OCOs learn oph­thal­molo­gical skills that are below those of an oph­thal­molo­gist, but enable them to per­form com­mon treat­ments and exam­ina­tions (spe­cial­isa­tion: catar­act sur­gery or low vis­ion).

We have already sig­nific­antly expan­ded our cooper­ation with the DBHW in Kenya: In 2024, the Aumund Found­ation decided to fin­ance the con­struc­tion of a much-needed rehab­ilit­ation cen­ter for blind and visu­ally impaired chil­dren at a primary school in Marigat (Baringo County). In addi­tion to the sup­port cen­ter itself, the pro­ject includes a girls’ dorm­itory, eye screen­ings, and the estab­lish­ment of a chicken farm as an income-gen­erat­ing meas­ure. Just a few months after its com­ple­tion, the new facil­ities enabled an increase in the num­ber of chil­dren with dis­abil­ities attend­ing the school.