World Sight Day
(WSD) is an international day of awareness, held annually on
the second Thursday of October to focus attention on the
global issue of avoidable blindness and visual impairment. WSD is
coordinated by the International Agency for the Prevention of
Blindness (IAPB) as part of “VISION 2020: The Right to Sight”.
VISION 2020 is the global initiative for the elimination of
avoidable blindness, coordinated jointly by the World Health
Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for the
Prevention of Blindness (IAPB).
Theme of World
Sight Day 2009 (WSD09)
“ Gender & Eye Health – Equal Access to Care”
According to WHO
estimates
-
Approximately
314 million people worldwide live with low vision and
blindness.
-
Of these, 45
million people are blind and 269 million have low vision.
-
Low vision of
145 million people is
due
to uncorrected refractive errors and could be restored with
eye glasses.
-
80% of
blindness is avoidable i.e. readily treatable and/or
preventable.
-
90% of blind
people live in low-income countries.
-
Every five
seconds one person in our world goes blind and a child goes
blind every minute.
-
Nearly two
thirds of blind people worldwide are women & girls.
-
About 28000
new cases of cataract are reported everyday worldwide.
-
More then 82%
of all blind people are at lest 50 years old.
In India about
9% of the populations have low vision or blindness. About 19
million people are blind and this number is increasing
everyday. The problem is acute in the rural India particularly
in the age group of 60 years and above. According to Ministry
of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India, unfortunately,
the rate of prevalence of blindness is highest in the state of
Assam i.e. 3.05% against the national prevalence of 1%.
Anugraha Drishtidaan is a national level voluntary
organization working in health care sector. The mission of
Anugraha Drishtidaan is to bring light in the lives of poor
and needy persons by organizing eye screening and cataract
operation camps in various parts of India and to promote
awareness on active aging.
Anugraha Drishtidaan is registered under the Societies
Registration Act and exempted from tax under Section 80G of
Income Tax Act.
We have organized 213 camps during the last 6 years in the
states of U.P., Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Maharasthra, Tamil Nadu,
A.P., Jharkhand, Nagaland and Assam. In these camps 109082
patients were screened, 33536 patients were provided with
medicines, 34046 patients were given spectacles for low vision
and dark glasses and 14812 patients having cataract were
successfully operated upon. We have also screened more than
10,000 students in rural Gujrat and Assam and provided
medicines/vision glasses to them. For details please visit our
website.
Anugraha Drishtidaan is organizing one day Seminar to
celebrate WHO programme“World Sight Day 2009” on 8th October,
2009 at Guwahati,Assam in collaboration with
-
Assam State
Blindness Control Society, Govt. of Assam
-
Regional
Institute Of Ophthalmology, Guwahati Medical College
-
All Assam
Ophthalmic Society
-
Sri
Sankaradeva Netralaya
In addition to the Seminar, we also plan the following
activities as incidental to WSD- 2009:
-
Organize
Rallies for creating Awareness.
-
Screening of
about 50,000 people in the rural areas to detect ‘eye
problems’ and vision correction
-
To organize
about 500 cataract operation in Assam and other North East
states.
-
To screen
about 25,000 school children to detect eye problem and
vision Correction and distributing spectacles.
-
Distributing
leaflets about “eye care” and avoidable blindness awareness
for public.
-
Special
message for students in all the schools in Assam to be read
out
on World Sight Day about “ Eye Care and Avoidable
Blindness”.
-
Organize “
Beautiful Eyes Contest”
DG, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt of India to deliver key not address. We invite and
request you to kindly make it convenient to be the Guest of
Honour at our inauguration function.
We expect about 200 delegates to attend the Seminar
comprising of
-
Govt of India
officials dealing with Health and Eye care.
-
State Govt. of
Assam & other NE officials engaged in Eye - care and
avoidable blindness programme.
-
NGOs working
in Assam & other NE states
-
Hospitals /
Nursing Home in Assam & NE.
-
Principal
/officials of Sarb-Siksha Abhijan – Assam.
-
Lions & Rotary
club.
-
Selected
Students from various colleges.
-
All Assam
Women Association.
-
Tribal
Associations in Assam.
-
Bramha Kumari
organization.
-
Social –
welfare organizations.
Some of the
issues to be discussed in the Seminar will include.
-
Policy and
Programme on Avoidable Blindness
-
Issues and
Challenges in Blindness Control Programme & Resource
Mobilisation to Support this Mission
-
Eye Care
Programme for Children & Measures for Correction-Role of
Education Deptt. & Others Comprehensive Eye Care
-
Taking the
Mission to Rural areas with Special Focus On Aged, Women and
Girls
It is expected
that this Seminar will play a significant role in creating
awareness in the society and sensitizing all concerned in the
mission of Avoidable Blindness. With a view to reduce the
incidence of blindness in Assam considerably.
