World Sight Day
World Sight Day 2022 | #LoveYourEyes
This month, the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) launched its Love Your Eyes global campaign. The goal of this year’s campaign is to raise awareness of the social and economic impacts of blindness across the world.
Across the world, many suffer from poor eye health. As a result of this, many of those living in developing countries fall into extreme poverty. In many of these countries, eye healthcare systems lack essential resources and funding causing some of the most vulnerable to suffer needlessly.
Blindness has become a serious public health crisis. 90% of blindness is treatable and/or preventable. Many organisations such as our Tej Kohli and Ruit Foundation, are working towards supporting those suffering from preventable blindness and giving vulnerable people a second chance at life.
The Love Your Eyes campaign is leading up to the IAPB’s World Sight Day which takes place on the 13th of October. Much like the campaign, World Sight Day is a way to call upon different organizations, governments and industry leaders to create change and create recognition for eye health.
One of the key points of World Sight Day 2022 is to pledge your eye test. The IAPB is encouraging individuals to get their eyes tested and pledge to take care of their eyes. The IABP is also encouraging organizations to pledge all the tests that they have carried out. As part of this, the Tej Kohli and Ruit Foundation are pledging all further screenings and surgeries towards the IAPB’’s World Sight Day aim to have 5 million pledged eye tests.
The goal of World Sight Day is to create a platform that influences decision-makers to prioritise eye health initiatives. Organisations, along with the IAPB are calling upon government bodies to increase their awareness and treatment of eye health issues. On top of this, World Sight Day initiatives aim to increase the demand for eye health services across the world. This is mainly due to some nations not having accessibility to sufficient eye care services and many communities suffering at the hands of needless blindness.
It is said by the IAPB that nearly everyone on the planet will experience some sort of eye health issue once in their life. Whilst in many countries an eye issue can be fixed with ease, many living in marginalised communities are unable to access vital resources to receive preventative or restorative surgery. With the assistance of organisations such as the Tej Kohli and Ruit Foundation, we can screen patients to test their vision — giving them the chance to life free of blindness and poverty.
With this in mind, the Tej Kohli and Ruit Foundation has made a strong commitment to curing cataract blindness in the nation of Bhutan. Curing those in Bhutan is part of a collaboration between our foundation and the Bhutanese government.
Bhutan has improved their levels of blindness by 0.9% since 2009. This decrease in the blind population has improvements in people’s socioeconomic activity. Working with the Bhutanese royal family and government, we have been able to plan toward curing the nation’s entire cataract-blind population. This will be a major success for every person involved.
To celebrate World Sight Day make sure to get involved, get your eyes tested and support organisations in the battle against blindness and poverty.
The Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation is a restricted fund operating under the auspices of Prism The Gift Fund, registered UK charity number 1099682.