On World Sight Day (WSD), Sewa Sadan Eye Hospital and CBM jointly organized an inter-school collegiate painting competition.
WSD is observed annually on the 2nd Thursday in October. The global day aims to create awareness on eye care. This year the focus is on child health with the theme “Love your Eyes Children”.
The paintings on the theme “Love your eyes” were depicted on the walls of the upcoming hospital building under construction at Airport Road, Gandhi Nagar. As many as 107 students from 14 schools and colleges participated in the painting competition creating 24 paintings.
Bhopal CMHO, Dr. Prabhakar Tiwari was the chief guest while State Program Officer for Blindness Control, Dr. Anshul Upadhyay presided over the function at the program organized on the concluding ceremony of the competition.On this occasion, Dr. Prerna Upadhyay, Dr. Rashmi Apte of Sewa Sadan, Managing Trustee A.C. Sadhwani, Trustees Hero Gyanchandani, Rajkumar Mulchandani, Suresh Awatramani, Sant Sewak L.C. Janiyani, Dr. Hemant Sinha, P.S. Rathore, Kushal Dharmani, Manoj Dhawadiya and Bharti Janiyani were also present.
Dr. Prabhakar Tiwari appreciated the paintings and congratulated students from all institutions. He also praised the remarkable services provided by Sewa Sadan Eye Hospital in preventing controllable blindness. Dr. Tiwari appreciated the students’ creativity in addressing blindness and emphasized that if students have sufficient knowledge of eye care at a young age, they can raise awareness in society.
Dr. Anshul Upadhyaya expressed concern about the increasing screen time due to the modern lifestyle, which includes the extensive use of mobile phones, TVs, laptops, tablets, and other electronic devices, and its negative impact on people’s vision. Dr. Anshul congratulated all the students and winning teams for creating outstanding paintings.
Dr. Rashmi Apte said that due to increased screen time, dryness and itching in the eyes are becoming common among children. If such symptoms occur an eye doctor should be a consultant at the earliest.
Dr. Rashmi said that it is safer to watch TV or laptop instead of watching on mobile. She said that after thirty minutes of screen time, it is necessary to give thirty seconds of rest to the eyes. Increasing screen time can cause near-sightedness (myopia) at an early age.
Earlier, Mr. A.C. Sadhwani welcomed the guests and said that the theme of this year’s World Sight Day event has been kept as “Love your Eyes-children”.
In the beginning, Dr. Prabhakar and Dr. Anshul judged the paintings. The team from B.S.S. College was awarded the first prize of Rs. 5000, Mithi Gobindram Public School was awarded the second prize of Rs. 3500 and Navnidh School was awarded the third prize of Rs. 2500.
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.