A three-member team from Sewa Sadan Eye Hospital of Dr Shubra Thakkar, Ms Maya Gyanchandani, and Bharti Janiyani participated in the maiden EYEXCEL Advanced Training Programme. The training was held over four days from 10th to 14th June 2024 and organised by Seva Foundation and Sadguru Netra Chikitsalaya, with support from LAICO Aravind Eye Care System and Ophthalmology Foundation. The successful training programme held at Chirakoot saw participation from 12 teams. Faculty for the programme were from LAICO, Dr. Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital, and H.V. Desai Eye Hospital
Nisha Solanki belongs to a large family of two brothers and four sisters (of whom 3 are married). Both her brothers and elder sister attend school. Nisha’s father is mentally challenged. The responsibility of earning is on the mother, who is a daily wage farm labourer and grandmother, who tends to her goats. Two earing members for a family of ten.
Blindness in children leads to deep impact on psychological, emotional, and socioeconomic growth to the family. A child with blindness is more likely to have delays in developmental milestones, to be more frequently hospitalized, and die during childhood than a sighted child. Such severe vision loss also adversely effects the educational activities, orientation, and mobility from the early stage of life resulting in lack of employment privilege. These differential characteristics between a sighted and non-sighted child is more obvious in developing countries. Moreover, the disability adjusted life years (DALY) loss in a blind child is far more than that of adults with blindness.