Nicholas Kristoff, op-ed columnist, writing in The NY Times:"I’m bouncing across West Africa in the back of a Land Cruiser with the winner of my “win-a-trip” contest, Paul Bowers, a student at the University of South Carolina, talking about wonky ways to tackle global poverty — such as vitamin A capsules.
Americans pretty much take vitamin A for granted, but many of the world’s poorest people lack it. And as a result, it is estimated that more than half-a-million children die or go blind each year. There’s a simple fix: vitamin A capsules that cost about 2 cents each.
I had planned this “win-a-trip” journey in part to introduce Paul to the problem of blindness as an element of global poverty. When I first visited West Africa myself as a backpacking law student, I was staggered and depressed by the blind beggars who circled me with outstretched palms.
So there we were, Paul and I, “enjoying” a 50-cent-per-person “breakfast” at a “restaurant” here in the town of Koundara in northern Guinea when we first came face to face with blindness on this trip.
A man named Amadou Bailo shuffled toward us, holding one end of a stick as his daughter held the other and walked ahead of him. In wealthy countries, the blind have seeing-eye dogs; in poor countries, the blind have seeing-eye children. The girl, Mariama, who thought she might be about 9 years old, has never been able to attend school because she spends her days guiding her father. Her older brother was the father’s guide before that, so he never went to school either."
Continue reading here - and reflect on how much the world spends on armaments, each year - and here are 1 million children, a year, dying or going blind who could be saved if given Vitamin A capsules costing all of 2 cents.
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