World Sight Day is held the second Thursday of October. This year it falls on Oct. 8. The day is an annual day of awareness with the goal to focus global attention on blindness and vision impairment.
As a mother of a child who has amblyopia, this day is close to my heart. With my own son, since we caught his amblyopia so late in his life, there was little treatment we could do.
We were lucky to find out before any kind of accidents that would lead him to be blind. Other kids are not so lucky and end up blind before ever realizing they have the condition. I can not stress enough to test your children's eyes before the age of three. Technology is so advanced they can even test newborn eyes. Get checked!
World Sight Day is included as a official holiday by the World Health Organization. The goal of the day is to raise awareness of blindness and vision impairment as a major issue, influence governments to participate in designating funds for preventive programs and educate people about blindness prevention.
The statistics are alarming. Approximately 314 million people in the world live with low vision and blindness. Of this number 45 million are blind. Most cases, normal vision could be restored with eyeglasses, but because of lack of funding, education, etc. these individuals are unable to get help.
Ninety percent of blind people live in low income countries. Do you see the issue and importance of this day? The World Sight Day website predicts that without major intervention, the number of blind people will increase to 76 million by 2020.
So what can you do?
Go to the eye doctor-Take your kids, etc. and make sure vision is corrected.
Plant a tree-The World Sight Day Organization is asking everyone to plant a tree to commemorate the day.
Send a picture-Vision2020 is asking people to send a photograph of two different genders, one of whom is blindfolded in the hopes of creating and international photo collage.
Volunteer, donate and support-As individuals, we can keep update in the activities in our own city and help out however possible.
Check out the website
www.v2020.org for more information.
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