World Sight Day is celebrated every year on 12 October. The day is dedicated to educate people about different types of visual impairment problems including blindness. According to studies, approximately 1 billion people suffer from various types of visual problems globally. All these sight problems could be prevented or addressed through proper education and awareness.
Visual impairment can affect people of all age groups. People suffering from sight problems face various difficulties like problems in managing their personal daily activities. There are different causes of vision impairment: some of them include unattended refractive error, cataract, glaucoma, eye infections, eye trauma, diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration, and more. One of the main goals of celebrating World Sight Day is to highlight the devastating effects of visual problems, and promote high quality eye care services at the global level.
World Sight Day 2023 Theme
The theme of World Sight Day 2023 is "Love Your Eyes at Work." The main agenda of this theme is to promote and highlight the significance of eye care at workplaces.
According to iapb.org, " Together, we will encourage employers to make eye health initiatives standard practice and promote eye health habits that will benefit the well-being, safety and productivity of millions of employees. The first step is prioritising your own eye health, and we invite you to pledge to #LoveYourEyes. The next step is motivating the world’s employers to provide quality eye care to their employees."
History of World Sight Day
The World Sight Day was first established in 1998 through a collaboration between Lions Clubs International Foundation (LCIF) and World Health Organization (WHO). The main focus of recognizing this day is to create awareness about good eye health and make eye care services accessible to everyone across the globe.
Significance of World Sight Day: Why Is It Celebrated?
The significance of World Sight Day includes the following:
To create awareness about vision problems, and encourage people to adopt healthy vision habits for better eye sight.
Promote eye care and regular eye check ups to avoid visual impairment issues.
To promote early diagnosis and preventive measures for vision problems and blindness.
To provide a platform for eye care organizations, ophthalmologists, policy makers, and government organizations to advocate for high quality vision care services, and promote initiatives for eye health.
To promote international collaborations for addressing vision problems and blindness.
To make eye care services accessible to everyone, and adopt strategies for improving eye health globally.
To reduce the stigma and discrimination faced by people suffering from visual disabilities.
To promote inclusion, provide equal access to eye care services, and improve the quality of life.
Celebrating the day encourages people to adopt healthy eye care habits like eating balanced diet, avoiding exposure of eyes to harmful UV rays, quit smoking, and more,
To educate people about common eye problems like cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and others. This will also reduce the chances of vision loss caused by such eye conditions.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)