Christian Blind Mission International

Christian Blind Mission (CBMI) - christian humanitarian organization for preventing and curing blindness, education and rehabilitation of blind or disabled people. It considered one of the world's oldest and largest religious organization serving the blind and disabled. CBMI was founded in 1908 by the German pastor Ernst Jakob Christoffel, who built homes for blind children, orphans, physically disabled, and deaf persons in Turkey and Iran.

CBMI, by its declaration, supports more than 1,000 projects in 113 countries, and tends to give related assistance regardless of religion, nationality, race, or gender.

The institution works with different mission agencies, local churches, self-help groups and relief agencies and has (by 2007) member associations in ten countries of Europe, North America and Australia.

Over the time of its existence, CBMI’s policy has developed from serving blind people to giving other people with disabilities access to basic healthcare services. According to conservative estimates, there are 400 million people with disabilities in the world - other figures talk of 600 million people. Most of them live in developing countries. CBMI, by its own estimation, cover about 3% (target population of 18 million) of all disabled people with its programmes.