October 8 is World Sight Day — Will You Take The Challenge?
What a lot of Canadians don’t realize is that 80 percent of the world’s blindness is actually avoidable. Avoidable blindness is blindness that can either be prevented or treated with known, cost-effective treatments. It means you don’t have to go blind. You can take care of your vision and prevent long-term detrimental impacts.
What Is World Sight Day?
Thursday, October 8, 2015, will be World Sight Day. An annual day of awareness surrounding blindness and vision impairment around the world, and how it can be prevented and/or treated.
This day is meant to shed some light and bring more understanding around the fact that 80 percent of blindness can not only be prevented and treated if everyone had access to proper vision and eye care services.
What Are Some Of The Causes Of Blindness?
In some instances, blindness can be caused by simply not having a proper pair of eyeglasses to help fix a simple refractive error. Other potential causes include diabetes, cataracts, and glaucoma.
Seeing Is Believing
It’s true that vision impacts every aspect of our lives. From students learning in the classroom, to adults feeling empowered in the workplace, sight isn’t a privilege, it’s our natural right. And everyone should have access to universal eye care from trained professionals to help properly detect and treat any and all vision problems, as well as catch early signs of other serious health conditions.
A Worldwide Initiative
Although the governing body around World Sight Day is UK-based International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), this still affects us here in Canada. This is a problem that knows no geographical boundaries, and doesn’t care about skin colour or religion. Blindness can affect each and every one of us, and should be treated as such.
How You Can Spread The Word
The IAPB has created a photography competition to help spread awareness of World Sight Day. All you have to do is submit your photo under one of three categories (professional, amateur or junior), and your photo must showcase the impact of eye health in people’s lives under one of the sub-themes such as eye screenings, families, guide dogs, eye care professionals, etc. Then, simply share your photo through Facebook or Twitter and invite everyone in your network to vote for your photo. The photos with the most likes/shares will win one of several prizes. And don’t forget to tag #EyeCareForAll. [http://photocomp.iapb.org/]
To learn more about World Sight Day, visit their website http://www.iapb.org/wsd15 and help spread the word!