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School children in Kenya sing a song about preventing trachoma
World Sight Day
An important advocacy opportunity for Sightsavers is World Sight Day - celebrated every year on the second Thursday of October, to raise awareness of avoidable blindness.
This year's World Sight Day takes place on October 13
Events are taking place all around the world to mark this special day; why not join in and help raise awareness of world blindness and vision impairment. You could organise something small with friends or family or you could organise an event in your school or place of work. Check out our A-Z of fundraising ideas for inspiration.
Imagine if.......together we could eliminate avoidable blindnes.
It's so important for Sightsavers to spread the word in the countries in which we work, to let people know what services are available to them, from eye tests to assistance for those who are blind. World Sight Day is a chance to do just that - and every year Sightsavers thinks of new and imaginative ways to highlight issues surrounding blindness.
As well as spreading the word among communities, it's a great way of grabbing the attention of governments and decision-makers, to help make sure eye health and blindness are on their agenda.
On World Sight Day, VISION 2020 members work together to:
- Raise public awareness of blindness & vision impairment as major international public health issues.
- Influence Governments/Ministers of Health to participate in and designate funds for national blindness prevention programmes.
- Educate target audiences about blindness prevention, about VISION 2020 and to generate support for VISION 2020 programme activities
International Key Messages
- Approximately 314 million people worldwide live with low vision and blindness.
- Of these, 45 million people are blind and 269 million have low vision.
- 145 million people have low vision due to uncorrected refractive errors (near-sightedness, far-sightedness or astigmatism). In most of these cases, normal vision could be restored with eyeglasses.
- Women face a significantly greater risk of vision loss than men - two-thirds of blind people worldwide are women & girls.
- 90% of blind people live in low-income countries.
- Yet 80% of blindness is avoidable - i.e. readily treatable and/or preventable.
- Restorations of sight, and blindness prevention strategies are among the most cost-effective interventions in health care.
- Infectious causes of blindness are decreasing as a result of public health interventions and socio-economic development. Blinding trachoma now affects fewer than 80 million people, compared to 360 million in 1985.
- Ageing populations and lifestyle changes mean that chronic blinding conditions such as diabetic retinopathy are projected to rise exponentially.
- Without effective, major intervention, the number of blind people worldwide has been projected to increase to 76 million by 2020.
