{"id":283381,"date":"2019-08-05T07:07:24","date_gmt":"2019-08-05T11:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.google.com\/articles\/CBMiYGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm9wdGljaWFub25saW5lLm5ldC9uZXdzL3JldGlyZWQtb3B0b21ldHJpc3QtdmlzaXRzLWV0aGlvcGlhLXdpdGgtdmlzaW9uLWFpZC1vdmVyc2Vhc9IBAA?oc=5"},"modified":"2026-10-16T11:48:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T15:48:37","slug":"ethiopia-first-low-vision-clinic-butajira-vision-aid-overseas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/283381","title":{"rendered":"British optometrist helps set up Ethiopia’s first low vision clinic in Butajira"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Wallis, a retired optometrist from Dorset, England, helped set up Ethiopia's first low vision clinic in Butajira during a 2019 trip with the charity Vision Aid Overseas, Optician Online reported.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/figure>\n

A main road in Butajira, Ethiopia, September 2022 (Mjr74 \/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0) [file photo]<\/em><\/p>\n

Wallis, 64, mentored a locally trained optometrist in low vision care and rehabilitation. He said the clinic was a pilot for more such clinics across the country and that he had been invited back to teach low vision care at the University of Gondar.<\/p>\n

He worked with GTM, a local charity that runs a small hospital in Butajira set up about 30 years earlier. Together they organized what he described as the country's first support group for visually impaired people, and began making white canes from bamboo grown on the hospital site; surplus canes can be sold to raise money.<\/p>\n

The clinic serves Butajira, a town of about 50,000 people, and an outreach population of about 1.5 million. A second low vision clinic was planned at Menelik II Hospital in Addis Ababa, where a five-story unit was under construction, Hub Publishing reported.<\/p>\n

Wallis said more than 3 million Ethiopians had severe visual impairment and that a lack of glasses was the third leading cause. \u201cA lot of children drop out of school due to poor vision,\u201d he said, adding that a telescope to see the blackboard and a hand magnifier can let them return to class.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong> Optician Online<\/a>, Hub Publishing<\/a>, Vision Aid Overseas<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Wallis, a retired optometrist from Dorset, England, helped set up Ethiopia’s first low vision clinic in Butajira during a 2019 trip with the charity Vision Aid Overseas, Optician Online reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":837859,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/butajira-ethiopia-2022.jpg?fit=1280%2C960&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1bIF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283381"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837871,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283381\/revisions\/837871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}