Through the Looking Mirror - Spotlight #11

“According to WHO, 80% of visual impairment including BLINDNESS IS AVOIDABLE.”

Recently, our club had organised a cricket tournament for the blind and partially blind people. It was unbelievable to see the level of their enthusiasm and zeal while playing. After interacting with them I realised that they were people just like me and you, but due to their financial conditions were not able to get proper and timely eye care or they chose to neglect it as many people do and later ended up with serious damage to their vision.

Globally, 285 million people are visually impaired of which 39 million people are blind. According to WHO, 80% of visual impairment including blindness can be prevented or cured if taken appropriate eye treatment. Un-operated cataract remains the leading cause of blindness in low and middle-income countries.81% people who are blind or have moderate to severe vision impairment are aged 50 years and above. With an increasing population of older people, more people will be at risk of vision impairment due to chronic eye diseases.

So, how can we as an individual make a difference?

• In just about any home, one can find a pair of eyeglasses that are no longer being used. That same pair of eyeglasses can change another person’s life. Imagine if you could help a child read. An adult succeed in his job. A senior maintain her independence. We as an individual or at club level can volunteer to collect used eyeglasses from our locality and mail it to the eyeglass recycling centres where they are cleaned, sorted by prescription strength, packaged and distributed to people in need in low and middle- income communities where they will have the greatest impact. Some Eyeglass recycling centres are mentioned here and you can mail the eyeglasses to them via your local Lions club. Link
• We can increase awareness about the eye health organisations in our locality and encourage people to take regular eye checkups and timely treatment of diabetic eye diseases and educate people about risk of eye diseases and encourage them to seek appropriate treatment.
• We can pledge our eyes to the nearest eye bank in our locality. The eye bank team removes the transparent section of the eye called cornea and not the complete eye ball of the deceased person. One pair of eyes gives vision to 2 corneal bind people.
• We can lend our eyes to the visually impaired people via a live video call, on platforms such as Be My Eyes, and help them solve challenges both big and small in their lives. Link

​Sources: Lions International & WHO

Leo Akshay Shah
Social Media Director,
Leo Club of Juhu.

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