Vision for Children: School Going Children Vision Screening Program
VISION Screening of school going children is one of the early detection programs that we initiated in line with our dream project of “A World without Childhood Blindness” in tune with our core value i.e. Elimination of Avoidable Blindness in Childhood and beyond.
Though we started screening of school children in 2005-06 itself, we realised the need to train the school teachers who, in turn, can identify children, who have Eye problem, in their school itself as otherwise it is a mammoth task to cover the total number of school children in the State of Andhra Pradesh that is about 80 lakhs in the Government run schools alone. Accordingly, we developed a kit to be used by the teachers and also trained the 1st batch of teachers during the year 2007. Initially, we started screening children in Government run schools in Rajahmundry and its neighbourhood and extended it to all the Mandals of the East Godavari District followed by West Godavari, Khammam and Hanumakonda Districts. This initiative led to a collaborating partnership for the State-wide program with the Government of Andhra Pradesh during 2012: ― Chinnari choopu – Samrakshana by providing 7,000 tool kits for training of school teachers.
We have till date screened over 7 lakh school children. after screening, we provide glasses with plastic lenses in a frame, chosen by the child free of charge. Similarly, children requiring further intervention – either medical or surgical – are also given treatment free of charge, by utilizing our own funds and with the contributions from state run schemes and generous assistance from various donors.
