Blind SA runner to participate in comrades
Francois Jacobs, a blind runner from Centurion, South Africa will take part in this year's Comrades Marathon along with Australian Markus Schär to raise funds for the Fred Hollows Foundation South Africa.
The Fred Hollows Foundation is an international development organisation focusing on blindness prevention. The vision of the Fred Hollows Foundation is for "a world where no one is needlessly blind." The Foundation has been working in South Africa since 1999, and the Fred Hollows Foundation South Africa was officially incorporated in January 2001.
Francois, who will be 40 in June, and works and lives in Centurion says that from an early age, he dreamt of running the Comrades. "I remember watching the Comrades on TV and being hugely inspired by the overwhelming sense of accomplishment and goodwill that was so tangible that it came across even to me as a blind person who could not ‘see' what's on the TV screen," he says.
Francois decided to tackle the daunting Comrades Marathon when the Fred Hollows Foundation contacted him through the SA National Council for the Blind, to ask whether he would like to run the marathon with Australian Markus Schär, who runs a website and blog called "Run4Vision" and runs to raise funds for the Fred Hollows Foundation.
By participating in the Comrades Francois says he hopes to send the message that "we need to look wider than our own immediate problems. We all have something to contribute to society, and the fact that my own sight cannot be restored by this initiative doesn't mean I cannot make it possible for others."
Fifty-year-old Markus Schär from Sydney, Australia says the idea for "Run4Vision" came to him whilst watching a blind runner competing in the Marathon des Sables in the Sahara, Morocco. He decided to participate in the same race in 2008, and says that knowing his family and friends would be inspired by such an adventure, he decided to "share my luck to be able to do what I want with less privileged people on this planet."
This year's Comrades will be Markus's second. He participated in the race in 2003 after South African friends told him about it.
By running the Comrades with Francois, Markus says he hopes to show that "every person has the capacity to make a difference, to look a bit further than our own personal horizon."
Why The Fred Hollows Foundation? "A cataract operation can turn an economically inactive individual into someone who makes a real contribution to society," says Francois.
"Too many people miss out, don't have or can't afford simple health care," Markus says. "The Foundation's objective is to restore sight to those who remain isolated because they are cataract blind."
Source: SAPA
