Why Sight for Kids? Visual Impairment & Blindness in Children
An estimated 1.4 million children in the world are blind. Three-quarters of them live in the poorest regions of Asia and Africa, most lacking access to treatment for often easily-treatable conditions. Half of all cases of refractive error (nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism) in the world remain undetected and untreated; this lack of treatment for these easily-correctable disorders is the leading cause of visual impairment and blindness in children.
This is why LCIF and Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Companies (JJVCC) have collaborated to provide eye health education and eye care access to millions of children since 2002 through Sight for Kids, a school based program that mobilizes volunteers to provide eye health education, high quality vision screenings and referral access to professional eye care and treatment, including eyeglasses.
Our Expanding Sight for Kids Partnership
LCIF’s Sight for Kids program has reachedmore than23 millionschool childrenin low income communities since its launch in 2002. The program is run by local Lions clubs and works with local eye care professionals to train more than 142,000 school teachers and volunteers to promote eye health and screen children’s vision. Through this model, Sight for Kids has been effective in leveraging Lions and Johnson & Johnson Vision Care support to raise local eye health awareness and identify, refer, and correct visual impairment in school children.
Recently, LCIF and JJVCC announced plans to expand their Sight for Kids school-based vision screening partnership program to communities outside of Asia, to Kenya and Turkey, as well. These are the first two countries in Africa and Europe to receive Sight for Kids services. Combined, these two new projects are expected to reach more than 250,000 additional children in their first year alone.
A hands-on team effort, the screenings are coordinated by local Lions, JJVCC staff and local medical personnel and partners. By training more than 136,000 Lions volunteers and school teachers to screen children’s vision, Sight for Kids has been able to work with more than 40,000 schools to identify and correct visual errors in school children. Of the 23 million children screened to date more than:
835,000 children were referred to local eye care professionals; of these:
432,000 children received eye care treatment
325,000 children diagnosed with refractive errors and provided eyeglasses
Another 107,000 treated for other eye conditions, including surgeries
44,000 schools and day care centers engaged across 10+ countries to date
5,800,000 pieces of locally developed eye health education materials distributed in communities
Since the program began, Johnson & Johnson has committed US$3.2 million to fund Sight for Kids vision screenings in areas of need, including the new efforts in Kenya and Turkey.