Genetic and metabolic disease center, which is part of the Faculty of Medicine at Al-Quds university,  in cooperation with the American  foundation   “Hope In Sight” started optometry project  for  students in the primary schools  in Jerusalem and Ramallah. This project aims to create awareness among students and their parents about the importance of conducting this type of test which contributes to early detection of any genetic diseases or others that may affect child’s eyes during their critical period of growth.  This project included 3 schools in Jerusalem:  the boys house school, flowers Kindergarten and Al-Zahra school. In addition to two schools in Ramallah:  Future school and the Friends school for girls.

 In coordination with the Deanship of students affairs at Al-Quds University, the centre of the Genetic and metabolic disease had selected students   from the three campuses: the main campus, Beit Hanina and Hind Al-Huseni, a number of students from different disciplines to participate in this project.

The American team, which includes 7 members some of them are ophthalmologists, who are specialists in eye care, trained these students to conduct survey examination of the children Eyesight.

The first session of training was in Jerusalem   in the child's Institute / Beit Hanina in presence of 20 students (male and female) from different disciplines, the second one was in the main campus with also 20 participants. After they have passed the training period, the students conducted the examination for 220 students in Jerusalem, and 350 students in Ramallah, for   students of the first and second grade in the primary school.  

This activity is the first step towards circulating this project at all the schools in the province / governorate in our country, and it will be conducted for the students of  other 18 schools  from different provinces in the near future .  Then it will initiate the necessary arrangement to conduct this important survey examination to the rest of the schools.