Greytown Lions aid albino African boy

HELPING OUT: Watmon Ben, of the Gulu Lions Club, examining Emmy's eyes. PHOTO/FACEBOOK.

Greytown Lions are lending a helping hand to a young boy in Uganda who suffers from albinism.

Kica Emmanuel, or Emmy, is a 14 year old who "just wants to study hard and be a great person in the future" but to get his education, he has to walk 3km barefoot, with severe shortsightedness, from his home to his school in the Nwoya district.

People with albinism have no pigment or little pigment in their eyes, skin or hair, making them prone to sunburn.

They can't produce the usual amounts of the pigment called melanin which is essential for the full development of the retina, thus causing visual impairment.

Lions member Geoff Walker kick-started the fundraising project after seeing a post about Watmon Ben, a doctor and past president of the Gulu Lions Club, examining Emmy's eyes, on the Facebook page of a writers activism group in Uganda called The Galaxy Poets of Northern Uganda.

Mr Walker said club members recently raffled firewood, raising $570 which has been sent to the Gulu Lions Club.

Mr Walker said this will help Emmy and his father, a peasant farmer, get transport to a specialist eye hospital in Tororo, about 400km away.

"He's got more problems than shortsightedness."

Emmy has about five different complications with his eyes including extreme sensitivity to light, and problems with his macula and the nerve that connects the brain is also abnormal.

His shortsightedness can't be corrected but it's hoped the specialist hospital will be able to give him a vision aid so he can read books and the blackboard at school.

Mr Walker said they were amazed that there were people on the other side of the world thinking about them.

St Kizito Bidati School head teacher, Ochan Boniface, said Emmy is one of the best students in his class.

"He is always very late to school but we know his problem.

"We encourage Emmy to be here because he is one of the brightest assets our school has."

Mr Walker plans to visit the boy when he goes to Uganda for a year next May.

It will be his third time visiting, after going in 2012 and 2013.

His connection with Uganda developed after becoming friends with a Danish woman, who he hired to work in his photography store in Auckland.

She began sponsoring children in Uganda and sending over containers with goods and would go and help unpack them

"I thought I must come have a look sometime."

Mr Walker said the Greytown club usually helped people closer to home but Lions is a massive, international club.

"The whole concept is people helping people."

Together with the Gulu Lions Club and Kuranui College, they plan to send four containers of goods over four years to a village called Ludok.

Mr Walker said the country is still recovering after a long civil war.

"Ludok was right in the middle of it, they came out of their refugee camps and had nothing."

They then plan to turn the containers into a community centre.

A classroom at Kuranui is already starting to fill up, he said.

They are collecting school materials, laptops, clothing, and bedding.

Almost anything is useful. If you can help, contact Mr Walker on 021 419 301 or geoffwalkernz@gmail.com