Positive legacies Families use heartbreak to offer hope for others

In Bhubaneswar, the capital of the north-east Indian state of Odisha, an eye clinic has transformed the lives of thousands of children.

- Esther Addley

Before it was established in 2008, according to its vice-chair, there was no dedicated children's eye care centre in the eastern part of India, a country home to 20% of the world's blind children.

The clinic now treats about 3,000 children a month and performs 350 eye surgeries - a significant proportion at no cost to the often very poor families who need them.

This is one of the legacies of Miriam Hyman, a 31-year-old picture researcher, amateur artist and keen dancer who was murdered in the 2005 London bombings. Miriam was "a very visual person," said her older sister Esther, and after her death, her family were determined that good would come from the terrible act of violence that claimed her life.

With their compensation money and public donations, they funded the equipment needed to set up the Miriam Hyman Children's Eye Care Centre in Bhubaneswar. Thanks to its work, among other achievements, doctors have made significant steps towards eliminating one form of childhood blindness, retinopathy of prematurity, in the area.

"It makes our hearts happy to know that she's memorialised in that way," said Hyman. "The centre is Miriam's living memorial. It's a place that benefits people, and that's very much the kind of person that Miriam was."

The families of those who died in the 7 July attacks will gather today to mourn and remember those killed in the four suicide bombings, three on underground trains and the fourth on a double-decker bus.