Story number 2 for 28 Aug 2003

(Afghanistan)–Meanwhile, post-war Afghanistan still struggles to recover.

One critical need is medical care, including eye care. Without a restored infrastructure, the burden falls to groups like Interserve, partnering with the NOOR (newer) Eye Program. Together, they meet nearly ninety percent of the eye care needs in Afghanistan, prompting the need for more funding. “The project has gotten so large that we need much bigger donations and it’s been difficult to break into the large funding group. They do not see eye care as a priority need. We’ve started to cut back services, and if we don’t get major funding soon, we’ll have to curtail them very severely.” Interserve’s Tom Little. He says the government recognizes their faith, but restricts proselytizing. However, team members still minister. “They make no restrictions on us answering questions and we spend a lot of time just answering questions. We have freedom to answer and our lives hopefully reflect what we say.”