World Sight Day: Stronger Together

Did you know that approximately 285 million people around the world live with low vision and blindness? Not only elderly have to deal with low vision and blindness, also 19 million children worldwide are visually impaired.
However, 80% of all those people have avoidable visual impairment, which means that the impairment is treatable or was preventable at first. Therefore, the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) organizes each year World Sight Day. This year World Sight Day was held on October 13^th and the theme was Universal Eye Health.

Nowadays more than 154 IAPB members are supporting World Sight Day by organizing activities and events such as a photo competition and blindfolding important statues.

Members of the World Association of Eye Hospitals have also organized several activities and events to raise awareness on avoidable visual impairment. For example; In Rotterdam people were offered a free eye test at one of the clinics of the Optometrist Collective Rijnmond.

In the Tun Hussein Onn National Eye Hospital in Malaysia an international conference was organized with as theme ‘Seeing Eye to Eye: Blindness Prevention in ASEAN and Beyond’. During this conference experienced practitioners and advocates spoke about the prevention of blindness, while sharing updates on the latest technologies in the region. In conjunction with this conference, an Exhibition and a Photography Competition themed “Prevention of Blindness” was held to create awareness of eye health. Besides that, a charity walk was organized to raise funds.
All examples of great initiatives to raise attention and to support the World Vision Day 2016!

Sources:

• http://www.iapb.org/advocacy/world-sight-day
• https://www.oogziekenhuis.nl/nieuws/laat-van-10-tm-15-oktober-gratis-de-gezondheid-van-uw-ogen-controleren.html
• http://thoneh.com/2016-world-sight-day-conference-seeing-eye-to-eye-blindness-prevention-in-asean-and-beyond/