Lions Clubs of Seychelles support community projects |25 November 2022

Handing over of donation at the Seychelles Hospital

Following on from the successes of the eye screening and glasses distribution across all the homes for the elderly across Seychelles, the Lions Club of Seychelles is going even further, broadening the campaign and bringing it closer to everyone.

With the visit of District Governor of the Lion’s Clubs District 411A Shehzan Luhar, the first of the district-level health and eye screening campaigns kicked off yesterday morning at the English River district administrator’s office.

The Lions Club delegation was welcomed by member of the National Assembly Andy Labonte, who expressed his deepest appreciation for the vision of the three Lion’s Clubs in Seychelles, and that of the International Association, especially for the vision and sight campaign.

In all, around sixteen residents benefitted from the screening yesterday, supported by private practice Optic Seychelles.

Mr Luhar noted that vision screenings are one of the clubs’ global causes, with the Lions’ Clubs International known for providing eye care and support to various communities for almost 100 years.

“The vision screening is for everyone, and we are hoping that the community will also support us, and that other partners will come onboard and support us,” Mr Luhar noted.

In addition to congratulating and thanking Seychelles counterparts for their efforts in conducting the programme, Mr Luhar also conveyed appreciation towards the government for supporting the clubs and their initiatives, towards creating an impact and serving the entire community.

DG Luhar has brought along with them 700 pairs of glasses, to eventually be distributed to citizens found to be in need.

The next screening is to be held during the first week of December, at the Mont Buxton district administration.

Yesterday also saw donations to two different groupings. Firstly, the Melvin Jones Fellowship Lions Club Seychelles (DISTRICT 411A) made a donation to the Child Health services of the Seychelles Health Agency, at the Seychelles Hospital, also in the presence of the District Governor for Ethiopia, Kenya and Seychelles Shehzan Luhar.

The donation to the Child Care Unit included a laptop and other stationery, which the child health programme manager, Michelle Fred, said will be useful to both nurses and the administrative staff.

It was handed over to the chief executive of the agency, Dr Danny Louange, who thanked the Melvin Jones Fellowship for their generosity and for being a loyal partner to the agency.

The club President, Sushant Mathur, said their club always caters for the need of society and yesterday’s event follows a specific request from the Child Care unit, which needed some materials to conduct its training.

“Our donation consists of a laptop, some stationery, pen drives, folders which will help the staff. Our organisation Melvin Jones Fellowship always conduct charitable events and we always get requests from the community and we try to help the needy people,” he said.

In the afternoon, the organisation turned its attention to the Mont Fleuri district, where it donated several cartons of household commodities including oil, rice, milk and juice, which will be presented to some elderly persons in the district.

It was the district’s member of the National Assembly, Michel Roucou, its administrator Steve Noel and some members of the district’s elderly grouping who accepted the donation from the Lions Club delegation.

According to Mr Noel, the commodities will be divided into hampers and distributed to 15 elderly people who are most in need.

“We are very grateful for this and we will make another 25 hampers to add on to this generous donation,” he told Seychelles NATION.

It should be noted that aside from the vision and sight programme, and donation, the Lions Clubs have diversified to meet the other needs of the community, and also conduct similar activities targeted at paediatric cancer, diabetes-related programmes.

The accompanying photos show some highlights of yesterday’s activities.

Contributed by Laura Pillay/Vidya Gappy/Patsy Canaya

Photos by Louis Toussaint