Pleasant viewers, welcome to Good People, Good Works. According to World Health Organization statistics, cataracts are the leading cause of blindness in the world, and every five seconds someone loses his or her vision due to this illness or other reasons.

Globally approximately 285-million people are visually impaired, including 39.8 million who are totally blind. http://www.emro.who.int/cpb/facts.htm

On today's program we'll visit the Alalayiha School for the Blind in Beit Jala, Palestine, which provides special education enabling the visually impaired and blind to smoothly integrate into the public education system and develop their talents.

Alalayiha is the first and the oldest school of its kind in the Arab world. Let us now hear more about the school's background from its director, Mr. Mesbah Hijazi. http://www.emro.who.int/cpb/facts.htm

Mr. Mesbah Hijazi(m): This organization is a social-humanitarian institution providing academic and rehabilitative services for blind students or children from the age of six and up to 16 years. It was founded in 1938 in the city of Hebron. And later moved to Ramallah, to Bethlehem, then to Beit Jala where we are now.

The students start here from six years old, from the first grade. They graduate after the ninth grade, so we rehabilitate these students in this period from six years (of age) to 16 to integrate them into their usual school, in the regular school. So they continue in their secondary school in the usual school, with the other usual students, and their university studies also continue as the others.