President Carter dedicates vision statue to Lions

Former US President Jimmy Carter has dedicated a statue representing the "Gift of Sight" to the Lions Clubs International in Oak Brook, Illinois.

The "Gift of Sight" statue was donated by the Carter Center and was awarded in recognition of the Lions’ SightFirst programme, an ongoing campaign against preventable blindness. The SightFirst campaign, which has previously supplied $231 million in grants for sight programmes, has now pledged an additional $203 million for research, medicine, hospital equipment and healthcare worker training.

The statue dedication took place at the Lions Clubs International Headquarters in Oak Brook on Tuesday January 27th, 2009, during a two-day youth development and blindness prevention symposium.