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CBM-US CEO Speaks at World’s Largest Global Health Conference

Submitted by: Jo Halmes on May 03, 2011 at 4:33 pm Tagged with: Developing Countries, disability and poverty, global health leaders Source: CBM -- Christian Blind Mission

. Ron Nabors, CEO of CBM-US (Christian Blind Mission) whose headquarters are located in Greenville, S.C., recently spoke at the Unite for Sight Global Health and Innovation Conference at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.

This is the second time that Nabors has been invited to speak at the world’s largest global health conference. The conference is attended by more than 2,200 global participants from a wide variety of professions who exchange ideas across all disciplines of global health, international development, and social entrepreneurship. Nabors presented “Disability in the Developing World – Is There a Solution?”

As CEO of CBM-US, Nabors helps to provide services – including prevention, treatment, education/rehabilitation, and economic empowerment -- to people with disabilities in the developing world. CBM is the world’s largest international non-governmental organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for blind and disabled people living in the world’s most disadvantaged societies. Nabors says he is proud that CBM completed its 10 millionth cataract surgery in the developing world in Fall 2010.

“Individuals and families living with disabilities in developing countries are struggling just to survive,” Nabors says. “It’s a devastating, vicious cycle these people are caught in. Disability causes poverty, and poverty causes disability.”

Nabors says that more than 600 million people live with disabilities in the world, and 80 percent of them live in developing countries – or around 550 million people. Nabors calls these 550 million people with disabilities the “forgotten ones” because in most cases, a person with a disability in the developing world is hidden away from society.

“These people have no access to resources, no support to help them break out of this cycle,” Nabors says. “But it can be broken – one person or family at a time – with a comprehensive, sustainable approach that gives people with disabilities access to resources like health care, education, rehabilitation, and such.

“A sustainable approach is definitely the key to breaking this cycle versus a traditional medical or charity approach,” Nabors continues. “It’s like the saying goes – if you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.”

Nabors spends a large portion of his time advocating for people with disabilities in the developing world and usually is available for speaking engagements.

For more information on CBM-US, visit www.cbmus.org.

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