Zavier needs your help
Music student requires surgery to preserve sight
“My greatest fear is not being able to visually pursue my future, I’m afraid I won’t be as impactful,” Zavier Cheverria told THE STAR. The 24-year old, who is a final-year classical piano major at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, is worried that his career in music might be impacted if he does not get urgent corrective eye surgery.
While growing up in Moneague, St Ann, Cheverria was actively involved in his church band and since then, he has never abandoned the art.
“I’ve always been a musician for as long as I can remember,” he said. “I was always playing tambourine, the drum, and as I got older, I started playing the bass guitar and saxophone. I was a part of the choir at York Castle, my high school, and everybody just knows me for music.”
Cheverria, however, has had problems with his sight since he was an infant, and this has got progressively worse. He now has a condition known as lattice degeneration, which causes blurry vision. It can lead to a retinal tear or detachment, which are very serious conditions.
Doctors have recommended that Cheverria undergo laser surgery on his eye. The cost of the operation is US$3,000 (approximately J$430,000). There is no set date for the surgery just yet, but he is hoping to secure a spot at Ophthalmology Associates in Kingston before the end of the month. A campaign has been launched on GofundMe to help him raise the funds for the surgery.
Cheverria was diagnosed as being highly myopic at age two. “I’ve been wearing glasses since. I can’t see without my glasses. I do everything in them. I only take them off when I’m going to sleep,” he told THE STAR.
He said that his sight is an instrumental part of his dreams to continue making strides in music.
“Reading music is a major part of developing in music at Edna, and the major challenge I find is that I’d have to be very close to the scores, and smaller prints I can’t read properly. The process, for me, has been difficult to differentiate between the lines on the stave,” he said.
“While you have some persons that are able to read the keys when playing the piano, I have to rely on my memory to play. I really don’t want to live the rest of my life in such a way. It is not a good feeling,” he said
“I just want to make my mark in music because it is an extension of me. I feel like a fish out of water not being able to breathe without it.”
It is not the first time that Cheverria has started a campaign to raise funds for eye surgery. Last Saturday, a similar campaign was launched, but the US$ 3,250 that was pledged by donors was returned by the crowdfunding website because the account was improperly set up.
“GoFundMe deleted the account and returned all the funds to contributors because the account was set up outside of their supported countries,” he told THE STAR. “I had set up the account, but Jamaica is not a country on their list, somebody in an organised country would have to set up a campaign and list me as a beneficiary. I spoke with GoFundMe and they reinstated the account so persons can now donate again, I want to thank all the persons who had donated.”