As the divide between the rich and poor continues to increase in India, a significant proportion of the rural population lack access to basic healthcare services. Because of this issue, those in rural areas must often travel distances of up to 100 km to access them.
Charity for India to Fight Blindness
India is home to around 25% of the world's blind population and the largest number of blind children in any one country.
Why India Needs Support
- There are hundreds of thousands of children living with blindness in India, many of whom are blind due to avoidable causes.
- A critical contributor to vision loss among children is uncorrected refractive error, something often correctable with a simple pair of eyeglasses.
- Access to eye care is severely limited in many rural or poor urban areas: there are only about 15 ophthalmologists per million people in India, and fewer than half perform surgeries.
Because of these facts, many blind in India - especially children - simply lack access to the eye health services that could restore or improve their vision.
Obstacles to Addressing Childhood Blindness in India
With so many children who are blind or visually impaired, India has a unique set of challenges when it comes to eye care.
Examining and treating children requires special skills and calls for specific training, knowledge and equipment.
One of the major causes of vision loss in India for children is uncorrected refractive error. Causing blurred vision, a refractive error occurs when the eye cannot clearly focus.
Children with refractive error can face significant setbacks in learning in the classroom. This can then continue the cycle of poverty that many people with vision impairments face in India.
How a pair of ruby coloured glasses changed Thakur’s life
In Siliguri, West Bengal, India, Thakur, like many children, had trouble reading at night because of poor vision. She sat in the second row at school, as close to the board as possible, just to make out the letters.
25%
of the world's blind population live in India
270,000
children are blind or visually impaired
50%
of blindness among children in India is avoidable
Charity in India: Saving Sight in Progress
Over the past 20 years Orbis and our partners in India have played a leading role in:
- Training thousands of eye care professionals
- Conducting more than 18.5 million paediatric eye screenings
- Performing over 100,000 surgeries on children
- Carrying out 92 hospital-based trainings
Together, we can help more children see a brighter future.
Your support can ensure that every child in India has access to quality eye care, a chance to live without the burden of avoidable blindness.
Donate today to save sight
Impact of Our Eye Care Charity in India
Nearly 40,000
eye screenings conducted in community outreach
620
eyecare trainings completed
6000+
glasses prescribed
Shining a Light on Vision Centres: Aarav’s Journey to a Brighter Future
India has more people living with blindness and vision loss than any other country in the world. In a country where travel to a local hospital can mean a journey of hundreds of miles, and a large gap between rich and poor, nearly one in five people live with vision loss.
What’s Next?
We have been working to reach the World Health Organisation’s targets which state that there should be at least one paediatric eye care centre per 10 million people.
To reach this target, in 2023 we began working with partners on a key project in rural Odisha. The project aims to reduce avoidable blindness and visual impairment by developing affordable, sustainable, quality primary eye care services.
The project will:
• Establish five green vision centres, powered by solar energy
• Train an ophthalmologist in pediatric ophthalmology
• Conduct lots of outreach in schools, early childhood centres and through community camps
Help support our sight saving work across Asia and Africa
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