Rotary Greenland observes World Sight Day in unique way

October 11: World Sight Day (WSD) is an annual day of awareness held on the second Thursday of October, to focus global attention on blindness and vision impairment. World Sight Day 2018 is on 11 October 2018. This year, the ‘Call to Action’ for World Sight Day is: ‘Eye Care Everywhere.’

To commemorate this day, Rotary Vlub of Greenland Silchar organized a unique programme wherein they took out a rally from DSA till Premtala. The rally was quite different from any other rally witnessed by the people of Silchar. Members of Rotary Greenland and their allies tied black band on their eyes and walked on the busy streets of the town.

It was a rare display of empathy and not sympathy for those who have lost the eyesight. For those people the entire world is black. This black world of persons without the light of the eyes inspired Madhumita Paul, the President of Rotary Greenland to undertake such a unique rally. Their main slogan was “Feel the pinch of darkness the 39 million people around the world are experiencing.” Speaking to way2barak, Madhumita Paul said that 6 countries of the world including India are observing this day. Rotary Club of Greenland Silchar has undertaken to observe this day as part of their Project Vision 2018.

Through this rally they also gave some strong message:

• 36 million people who are blind
• 217 million people with moderate or severe distance vision impairment
• Of those with blindness and MSVI, 124 million people have uncorrected refractive errors and 65 million have cataract—more than 75% of all blindness and MSVI is avoidable
• 253 million people blind or vision impaired (in 2015)
• 1 billion people with near-vision impairment
• The prevalence of blindness and vision impairment combined has dropped from 4.58% in 1990 to 3.37% in 2015.
• 89% of vision impaired people live in low and middle-income countries
• 55% of moderate or severely vision impaired people are women

Rotary Club of Greenland Silchar was accompanied in this rally by Rotaract Club, Interact Club, Rotaract Club of G.C. College, Prayas NGO, Rising Youth Society and others.