Dozens of children at Jewish Agency–sponsored youth villages in Israel will now receive eyeglasses and other necessary intervention following vision and hearing screenings provided by volunteer professionals from Jewish Healthcare International.
More than 600 screenings took place in 2011 as part of a recent partnership between the Jewish Agency and Jewish Healthcare International.
Dr. Stephen Kutner, an Atlanta ophthalmologist and founder of the nonprofit JHI, said he was astonished upon learning, on a tour of an Israeli youth village, that the residents — primarily children of recent immigrants from Ethiopia — were not being regularly screened for hearing and vision.
Kutner approached the Jewish Agency, whose four youth villages provide education, psychosocial counseling, vocational training and extracurricular opportunities to at-risk youth. Together, JHI and the Jewish Agency launched a comprehensive hearing and vision screening program at each of the agency’s villages.