Lionel Messi gifts young blind Arsenal fan OrCam glasses in life-changing gesture

Barcelona megastar Lionel Messi has come to the help of a young blind Arsenal fan as he sent the child a life-changing pair of glasses worth £4,200 by OrCam Technologies. Messi has joined hands with the Israel-based firm in a bid to increase awareness of the challenges faced by the blind and visually impaired community.

Messi will hand out OrCam MyEye device to people with inspiring stories, who are suffering from blindness or are visually impaired, every year. They also have the chance to personally meet the six-time Ballon d’Or winner in Barcelona. 

The selected individuals will go onto become members of ‘OrCam Dream Team’, which is led by Messi himself. 

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Mikey – the 10-year-old blind footballer from Enfield in London – became the latest recipient of OrCam glasses. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Messi had met 12 visually-impaired individuals in Barcelona to give them their glasses. 

Emotion was incredible: Lionel Messi

On the meeting, Messi said: 'The emotion was incredible. Meeting with this amazing group of people from around the world was truly a magical and inspiring moment. 

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'Witnessing each of the members of the 'Dream Team' trying out the OrCam MyEye features, it was clear that this would be a life-changing device for each of them. 

'I am proud to be an OrCam Ambassador to truly make a difference for so many.' 
Approximately 300million people worldwide suffer from blindness or varying degrees of visual impairment.

Meanwhile, Messi has also joined the full-training with his Barcelona teammates and is gearing up for the La Liga 2020-21 season, scheduled to kickstart on September 12. Messi was involved in a fallout with Barcelona board president Bartomeu but eventually decided to stay at Nou Camp as he couldn’t leave the club for free.