Urumqi - Just like her 15-year-old sister, Jenet, a 6-year-old Kazak girl in Banfanggou township in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, was born with beautiful eyes.

Yet even with the aid of glasses, that beauty has done little to prevent the world from becoming slightly dimmer nearly every day over the past two years.

In 2010, Jenet's mother, Kulizha, noticed Jenet was sitting too close to the television and always looking down in a strange way. Alarmed, she took Jenet to a Urumqi hospital to have her vision checked.

Kulizha learned afterward that Jenet's loss of vision was caused by a condition known as amblyopia, or lazy eye.

Amblyopia originates in the brain, not the eye, and occurs when the part of brain that receives images is not being stimulated properly.

"The doctor said my daughter has severe amblyopia and needs immediate treatment or she will never get her vision back," Kulizha said.

Kulizha learned the cost of Jenet's treatment would be 30,000 yuan ($4,665), an amount she could not afford on her school teacher's salary. And other members of the family were unable to help. Her husband is unemployed and their eldest daughter takes classes in a middle school and needs money to continue her studies.

Niyaz, a 10-year-old Uygur boy from eastern Xinjiang, also suffers from amblyopia and belongs to a family that cannot afford to have him treated. With his vision deteriorating, he has lost some of his confidence and he now refuses to go to school.

Yet, despite the dark circumstances, Jenet and Niyaz see a ray of hope because of a charity project started by the China Children and Teenagers' Fund.

In total, 165 children from different parts of Xinjiang - 90 percent of whom hail from ethnic families living below the poverty line - will go to Beijing to receive treatment for their condition.

Since June 2002, when the organization founded the Children Amblyopia Special Fund to help children who have amblyopia, 2,246 children from rural places throughout China have been helped.

Starting on June 22, a group of experts dispatched by the fund began going to rural places in Xinjiang and conducting a free medical survey of more than 2,000 children. After being preliminarily diagnosed, the 165 children who are to receive treatment are to attend the Radiant Children's Eye Hospital in Beijing.

The first batch of 39 children are coming from Kashgar, a city in western Xinjiang. They will be treated in Beijing on Sept 2, using the most advanced therapies and equipment.

"We selected children from poor families who are believed to have a chance of being cured," said Chen Hua, founder of the Xinjiang Women and Children Development Fund, which has been helping the China Children and Teenagers' Fund.

According to reports, between 12 million and 15 million preschool children in China have amblyopia. Of those, about 89 percent do not receive proper treatment, often because they have not been properly diagnosed.

Scientific research shows that severe amblyopia can lead to a series of problems, such as attention deficit disorder and a sense of inferiority, which can adversely affect the lives of the children who suffer from the condition.