World Sight Day
TAKING A STEP INTO THE UNKNOWN
FLEET LIONS JOIN GLOBAL CRUSADE TO CONQUER PREVENTABLE BLINDNESS
Lions World Sight Day aims to educate millions worldwide
The World Health Organisation has estimated that the number of blind people in the world could double in the next 25 years. To combat the leading causes of blindness and assist in preserving vision, the Fleet Lions Club participated in Lions World Sight Day on Thursday 8th October to heighten awareness and education about sight preservation and preventable blindness.
The Fleet Lions Club joined in this nationwide event by leading a 300-metre blindfolded walk at the Hart Centre, Fleet at noon - precisely the same time as Lions Clubs throughout the British Isles were doing the same thing, hoping to make it the largest simultaneous blindfolded walk on record.
We were joined on our walk by our District Governor, Judith Goodchild and the Hart Lions President, Marilyn Robson and Lion Alison Harrison from Hart Lions Club. We were also supported by Past Council Chairman John Goodchild, Jenny Collins and Gill Drayton. Thanks to Lion Graham Drayton for organising the event and to Lion Richard Collins for arranging press coverage.
It is estimated that 40 million people around the world are blind. On Lions World Sight Day, the Fleet Lions are working in unison with Lions clubs around the world to educate millions of people on the importance of proper eye health care.
On a worldwide scale, an estimated 75 percent of all blindness is found in Africa and Asia, according to the World Health Organisation. In Africa, there are an estimated 500,000 new cases of cataracts each year, of which only one in ten is operated upon. In India, 80 percent of the blind suffer from cataracts, with more than 3.8 million new cases reported each year.
In 1990, Lions established SightFirst, a £150 million global initiative to fight the major causes of preventable and reversible blindness. The unprecedented program joins Lions volunteers with blindness prevention experts and organisations and governments.
More than 900 SightFirst grants have:
- provided more than 7.3 million cataract surgeries and prevented serious vision loss for 27 million people
- supported 114 million treatments for river blindness
- built or expanded more than 300 eye hospitals/clinics/wards and upgraded more than 337 eye centres with equipment
- improved eye care in 90 countries around the world
- trained more than 345,000 ophthalmologists, ophthalmic nurses, other professional eye care workers and village health workers
In 2005, Lions launched Campaign SightFirst II to raise at least £100 million to continue and expand the extraordinary work of SightFirst. In 2008, after three years of intense fundraising, Lions had far surpassed this minimum goal.
