On October 10, World Sight Day, hundreds of organizations around the world promoted the importance of child eye health to help children learn and thrive. At Operation Eyesight, we honoured World Sight Day by highlighting our school eye health programs. With our partners, we screened 80,592 children in 225 schools (plus some community screenings), from Bangladesh to Zambia.
The focus on child eye health highlighted the impact of vision on education and future livelihoods. Vision issues impact education significantly, new research from the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness shows. The research states that children with poor vision learn half of what those with good vision do, while correcting a child’s vision at school increases their lifelong earnings by up to 78 per cent.
Not only did our team ramp up eye screenings in our school health programs, our country teams also engaged in community health care, hospital strengthening, integration of eye health care in primary health care, and advocacy at the national and local levels by attending meetings and press events.
See photos from initiatives held in honour of World Sight Day below!
Meeting Eye Health Care Needs of Children Outside of School
We used the lead up to World Sight Day to highlight not only school eye health programs but also programs that reach all children. Through our community health care model, we reach the entire family through door-to-door surveys and eye screenings. Those with sight issues are referred to local vision centres or hospitals for further care. When all cases of avoidable vision loss are addressed, and ongoing eye health care is in place, villages are declared as being avoidable blindness-free. In September on Aahotguri River Island in Majuli District, Assam, India, 20 villages received this declaration. See our work in this region in this video.
Through hospital strengthening and integration of eye health care into primary health care, we worked to support premature infants, who are at high risk of Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), a leading cause of blindness in children. When ROP is detected and treated early, it can prevent lifelong blindness. In September, in Bijnor District, India, our partner C. L. Gupta Eye Institute trained 35 neonatal intensive care staff to address ROP.
Advocating for Eye Health Care
We also used World Sight Day as an opportunity to advocate for universal health care that incorporates eye health care. To do this, our teams attended 15 meetings with partners, policy makers and local and national governments. Staff also attended press briefings.
Eye Health Ambassadors
Eye health care ambassadors donned #LoveYourEyes glasses and posted eye health awareness messages online. The ambassadors included students at screenings, our President and CEO Kashinath Bhoosnurmath, staff, kids, pets, post-secondary and high school students and even Calgary, Alberta, Canada Mayor Jyoti Gondek. We are grateful for their support in raising awareness of child eye health and Operation Eyesight.
Learn more about how you can support child eye health here.
