Full and Fascinating Friday

Sam Balasundaram (left) is the marketing administrator with LV Prasad Eye Institute with whom the church has already partnered and is anticipating another large long-term project for rural vision screening centers. LVPEI is an amazing place where they treat the rich and poor alike. Two suites are available for VIPs whose payments (they didn't sound very high to me) help to fund free care for those who have nothing. They deal with total care--screening through glasses, and/or surgery, and total follow up therapy and counseling to be sure that those with vision problems are able to function as normally as possible. They have a research lab and do cornea implants (they work at gathering corneas and have technicians who remove them from permission-giving people who have died) as well as remove cataracts. Whatever the problem (and there are a lot here in India), they work through the total process with each individual as if he were the only one when there are millions. You can't see here but Sam has his own vision problems, which no doubt led to his interest in LV Prasad EI where he plans to stay because he loves the work they do. (He has two siblings in America who are more Americanized profitwise than is Sam--we need those too but it is also wonderful when they are generous rather than after power control.) In pic at left we are inside the School of Optometry (4 yr course for 300 students at a time) at the small amphitheater. We drove for perhaps 45 minutes from the institute in Hyderabad to get to this beautiful place outside the city. We were uplifted by the beauty of the countryside. Students live here on campus and have no distractions from their studies.

Below left is inside the library and to the right is the landscape out front. Across the street is the training center (also beautiful surroundings) for the rural screening clinics. We had another unintelligble (but detailed) description of what they do by Vilas Kovai. LVPEI knows that rural people (in the 500,000+ populated villages) will never come to the city for eye care so they are taking eye clinics to them. They get someone to lead out and involve people in the building and donating of materials or already constructed building. They also train clinicans who then have jobs. The people buy into using it because they are a part of its development--what the Church is looking for. It has already partnered with LVPEI for several clinics by buying the necessary medical equipment for thorough eye examinations. These people are then fitted for very low-cost glasses or brought to the city for surgery if necessary and rehabilitated after. What LVPEI does illustrates their total commitment to improving the vision and ability to function of the Indian poor without thought for profit. Sam is instrumental in fund raising to support their efforts. It is a wonderful institute. I kept wondering if we have anything like it in the US. All that I am aware of is that people fill up the emergency rooms, often just for some topical care. There is no follow up. People's lives are not changed; they just exist until the next emergency (or what they consider an emergency). Sam says they do not involve the government at all because they do not want government regulations on what they do. They wouldn't be able to fulfill their vision of vision with government interference. We would be so much better off in America without the government interference but citizens there seem to be crying for government takeover. If they only knew that what they ask for they will get, and they won't like it a bit. My appreciation for those who are willing to truly help the poor--not keep them poor--is enhanced by the work of LVPEI. This is the way; government is not the way; government is the author of keeping people under its thumb in order to keep its power. What we need are champions like LV Prasad and Sam and Dr. Rao andVilas Kovai and others who are willing to use a free enterprise system to accomplish their godly desires. (Sorry for my soapbox.)



I don't know how to work this blog site so that pix stay where they are supposed to with appropriate captions. Hopefully you can make sense of this in the pix below. Everyone we dealt with on Friday was so smart, we felt all the dumber.

Library at LVPEI School of Optometry.

Coming back from the country I took this of military personnel (below) walking into their fort. The right is just to show traffic which is often worse. The little yellow vehicle is an auto and what we normally travel in. Its shades are down but ours have always been up.

It seems I need to tell the story backwards to place the pix appropriately. These two views should go underneath the next two. Anyway, they are scenes from Sundar's balcony in Hi-Tech City where the call and computer, etc., centers and other large companies are located. The middle building in left pic is Bill Gates Microsoft company where Madhu (will have an entry on him later) works. Gates has other buildings around there as well. The pic on the right is just a different view. This is definitely the more modern and clean part of the city.

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I think the pic above was taken thru the front window of a taxiwhen we were with Sam from LVPEI. Just wanted to show a different view from all the filth we live around. Not sure that I have gotten many pix which vividly portray the streets. Don't like to shoot when people are looking at me and appear to be one of those nosy American tourists. Since they are always everywhere I'm not getting pix I would like .

Praveen, who is on the left below, is a combination of an NGO and partner for us in our humanitarian work. He's only 23 but has an orphanage and lots of contacts or he did until he joined the Church three months ago and was abandoned by them. Sundar must be a recent potential partner/NGO to whom Praveen introduced us. We were told we wouldn't have to learn a foreign language but the English of some of these people is definitely foreign. We picked up only a word here and there but the jist we gleaned was that he viewed us as people with money bags for his pet projects which isn't how it works. Praveen got that pic and intervened for us somewhat. Praveen's not easy to understand either; we get about 60 percent, whereas we got about 2 from Sundar Vadaon (which means" beautiful face" according to him anyway). If I had understood better I might have gathered some tips for Snowflake Academy's fund raising efforts.

Above is the same cast with Roja who works with Praveen who has his own company and the Kaspers who have been doing their best to orient us to this strange city (They've been great life savers.). They met several humanitarian people with the Lyerlys who wanted to make the transition easier for us. Praveen will leave the country in six months for fund raising in the Netherlands, US, and somewhere else. His life is devoted to primarily helping the children. Sundar's building is about seven stories and we are at the top. It's beautiful but presently sits in the middle of a kind of slum field. The Hilton is to be built next door and by the time it's all developed he will be on prime property. Sundar reminded us of Peter Lorre combined with movie characters in a Tangiers setting. Hisinfectious and unusual laugh kept us chuckling despite our deciphering inability. That is a red dot in the center of his forehead.