Sustainable Avoidable Blindness Free Villages

India has over 12 millions blind people, the largest anywhere in the world. 80% of blindness can be prevented through a simple cataract surgery or a pair of spectacles.Our target locations in the selected currently do not have any eye care services. In most of the target locations even optical shops are non-existent. People wishing to avail eye care services have to travel long distances and consult private practitioners in urban cities. These practitioners cater to only those patients who can afford to pay. This means most of those requiring services simply do not access them.

The proposed project aims to promote avoidable blindness free villages communities on a sustainable basis through the twin strategies of empowering communities and making accessible quality eye health services at all levels. The project will result in a highly practical model for elimination of avoidable blindness that can be replicated not just in the proposed states of intervention but across other underserved parts of India and South Asia.

The proposed project interventions include recruitment of community based health workers from the target communities, their capacity building, conducting door to door survey to identify those at risk of losing sight, developing micro plans for village clusters, building awareness and improving health seeking behaviour, capacity building of Government Primary Health Care Workers in eye care, establishing and operating Vision Centers, ensuring delivery of quality eye care services by the base hospitals and working closely with the public health system among others

The major anticipated impact of the project will be that there will not be anybody at the risk of losing sight needlessly and that too on a sustainable basis in the selected villages.

Elimination of avoidable blindness, in turn will impact quality of the life of people affected by eye health conditions in the sense that they will now be independent to pursue livelihoods of their choice and lead a dignified life.

It is a common experience to find people who become victims of avoidable blindness or visual impairment are compelled to give up their livelihood related activities and confine themselves to their homes. The project when completed will enable such people to go back to their original livelihoods thus making them economically independent.