I. KNOWING: WHAT FUCOPCI IS?

The Blind People Foundation is a private group for social benefit. This institution was created with the purpose of fighting and trying to solve the blind people problem in our country, or, at least, part of it. After our investigations in this field, we arrived to the conclusion that among the blind population in Costa Rica the most forgotten group is the one that belongs to the third age. It is for this reason that we have created a unique project, specially directed to the third age group, that is the blind elderly. The objective is to provide them independent life, that means, a way to create in them the capacity or rehabilitation necessary so they can manage themselves under regular circumstances according to their age and their physical limitations.

Thus, in order to estructure this project and make it real we need your help, because to consolidate this project it is necessary to have a piece of land as well as the infrastructure for the building. The project "Centro de Rehabilitación para Ancianos Ciegos para Vida Independiente" is known as "CACPVI Project", and probably in the future it will be well known.

As stated by the OMS (Organización Mundial de la Salud) and the OPS (Organización Paramericana de Salud) there are approximately 12.000 people that are affected by visual problems. Thus, according to people working in these organizations, among this population there is 30% of people whose ages are 60 years old or more.

We are just starting what we call the ‘Grupo Mil’ (One Thousand Group). This project was created and thought in a way that it will formed by people of a strong voluntary spirit and social sensibility. The idea is that the Grupo Mil will serve as basis and give economic support for us to start the Blind Elderly People Center for Independent Life.

This center will work in the blind elderly capacitation in the most elementary and necessary areas of their life so the old blind person will be able to develop certain activities and will be helpful within this family and the society, and he will fulfill his expectations in life. It is here when we want you to join the Grupo Mil, which main purpose to have a net formed by one thousand campanies or persons that would provide twenty-five dollars ($ 25.00) per month, thus, in this way the elderly blind people will be given an opportunity to be part of and active society and can be productive people. This Grupo Mil will be the economic basis of all our programs.

SERVICES

Among our programs, one is the Ophthalmological Service for those persons that suffer from severe visual deficiences, and do not have economic resources and are not protected by the Social Insurance. The service includes: to send the pacient to an appointement with a professional Ophthalmologist, then according to the prescription, we will provide glases if it is necessary, the medical assistance whenever it is neccesary, and in some cases, we send patients to a foreing country in order to receive a surgery because sometimes thera surgeries are not practiced here in our country, or they are very expensive, so we can arrange a much lower price or sometimes these surgeries are totally free. As you can see, this kind of services and tratments are highly expensive, but we belive that it is important to help the population that is not protected, and that under other circumstances, many of them will probably lost their visual capacities. Our goal is trying to prevent illness in order to prevent people from blindness because this is an increasing ill that affects Costa Rican people day by day.

PROGRAMS

We also have a conscious and preventive program that is working since several years ago by means of radio announcemets, television, and the written media. This program has been called "Campaña de Respeto al Bastón Blanco" (Campaign of Respect toward the White Blind Stick). This campaign’s main purpose is to educate people about the blind people problematic situation toward the orther citizens and viceversa as well as trying to prevet blindness. Our pretention with this campaing is that the citizens have a new vision and a new dimension about what a blind person is and what is the better way to take care and help them on the street, at home, and at any other place. This will bring benefits for blind people of all ages, under any different circumstances, thus, at the time that normal people develop a good action the blind people will always appreciate it.

We have still other program named Campaig against Hipertension which consist on checking the blood pressure to everybody in different places such houses, supermarkets, and other public places because it has been demostrated that the two main causes for blindness in Costa Rica are the diabetes, and the glaucoma that is closely related to the hipertension.

This program has a second part which consists on an examination of the visual capacity in people of all ages. This program is directed to children and adolescents from primacy and secondary schools. This examination’s objetive is to detect any kind of vision problem, it can be in an eye or in both, with near or far objetives. Once a visual problem has been detected the person is sent to either an ophthometrist or ophthalmologist depending on the case.

We believe that by means of these two programs we can contribute to a real and effective campaing preventing blindness.

All the activities described above are those activities that FUCOPCI develops while it tries to reach its goal and main objective that were the palin reasons why FUCOPCI was created. This goal is the rehabilitation of elderly blind people exclusively. Thanks to the generous help received from Costa Rican people, the piece of land necessary to build our institution was already bought.

" And remember Costa Rica, FUCOPCI is your, ask FUCOPCI for help
whenever you need it and help us now that we need you."