KARACHI: Some 120,000 schoolchildren in Karachi and its surrounding areas will undergo free screening for eye ailments through the School Eye Clinic project set up by the Pakistan Eye Bank Society (PEBS) in collaboration with Rotary Club of Heidelberg-Schloss and the German Consulate during August 2026 and July 2027.

This was announced at the PEBS on Thursday after the milestone successful completion of the first phase of the project (from May 2025 to April 2026) through which 60,000 schoolchildren were screened.

According to PEBS President Qazi Sajid Ali, the project, a brainchild of two ophthalmologists in Germany, Dr Tobias Dratt and Dr Tilman Krauch along with himself, is helping in the prevention of blindness in schoolchildren from the early stages.

He said that he started the project with a team of professional doctors here from the PEBS whose dedication helped them complete the first phase ahead of the expected time even though they had thought it to be too ambitious a plan initially.

“Screening was both an emotional and heart touching experience for us as we came across cases where without treatment the children would have gone blind in a few years. Their parents had tears in their eyes while thanking us,” the PEBS president shared.

Dr Hashir Sarfaraz, one of the ophthalmologists who has been involved with the project from the start, said that during screening they came across thousands of children who needed glasses but did not wear them. “We diagnosed children with refractive disorders such as myopia, hyperopia, anisometropia, astigmatism and more,” he said.

Joining online from Germany, Dr Tobias Dratt said that helping children to see better helps them learn better, paving the way for their bright future.

While congratulating PEBS on the successful completion of the first phase of screening, the Consul General of Germany in Karachi, Thomas Eberhard Schultze, said he was very impressed by the fantastic work that has been done already. “Every child deserves eyesight and this initiative stands as a truly remarkable example of people-to-people humanitarian partnership between the Rotary Club of Heidelberg-Schloss and the PEBS, supported by generous donation from Germany,” he said.

“By identifying eye conditions at an early age and facilitating access to treatment in corrective measures is an initiative that has improved children’s ability to learn while helping to protect their long-term vision and the quality of lives of thousands of young people. It is a powerful reminder that investing in children’s eye health is an investment in their education, their future and the future of society as a whole,” the Consul General added.

PEBS’ General Secretary Shahana Kaukab and Joint Secretary Qazi Yasir Ali also spoke.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2026