SIGHT for a CHILD

RATIONALE

The World Health Organization estimates that there are approximately 370 million people, or 7% of the world's population has some kind of disability.

Currently there are 45-50 million blind individuals in the world, 90% of who live in developing countries. Roughly estimated, half of these, or about 20-25 million people are blind unnecessarily.

1.5 million children in the world are blind, and another 500,000 go blind every year. Half of these children suffer from Vitamin A deficiency. Fifty percent die within two years of losing their sight.

Ninety percent of all blind children have no opportunity to attend school, and eighty percent of blind adults cannot work because of lack of training facilities.

Studies show that about 0.78% of the population in the Philippines suffers from bilateral blindness. Among the leading causes of blindness are due to uncorrected refractive error of 33%. Affected of this disorder are children ranging from 0-19 years of age.

In the Philippines, 17,100 children are now blind due to uncorrected refractive errors. This could have been avoided if diagnosed early.

There are 11,916,686 public school elementary pupils and 909,532 private school pupils. Out of more that 11 million public school pupils there are 2,546,580 grade 1 and 2,074,620 grade 2 pupils.

The number of cases of vision impairment and blindness among Filipinos, has become an alarming reality of how the advancement in science and technology ironically eludes the health and the welfare of our society.

The impediment that vision disorders can cause to our countrymen poses a threat to the progress of our nation.

The burden of this concern adheres to the different sectors of the society. One of these is the Optometric Association of the Philippines.

In response to this global concern, the Optometric Association of the Philippines created a national vision health program for public elementary school pupils known as Sight for a Child.

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws