School Eye Health Program Celebrated in Pakistan
Posted on April 25, 2011
Topic: Eye Care, Uncorrected Refractive Error
The School Eye Health Program (SEHP) was celebrated with a stakeholder ceremony on March 27 at the Comprehensive Health and Education Forum (CHEF) International headquarters in Peshawar, Pakistan. The program will screen 1 million children in primary school for refractive errors and general eye health in Pakistani and Nigerian schools.
The ceremony acknowledged the joint efforts of organizations, community leaders, educators, and health workers to carry out the SEHP activities throughout Pakistan. Attendees included representatives from Light for the World (LFTW) Austria and the Ophthalmological Society of Pakistan. Dr. Bruce Spivey, President of the International Ophthalmology Council (ICO), spoke via video, discussing the far-reaching benefits of taking a local approach to correcting refractive error and improving eye health care. He also thanked the supporters of SEHP, especially noting the work of Dr. Babar Qureshi.
SEHP is a collaboration of the ICO Task Force on Uncorrected Refractive Error (URE), ICOFoundation, LIGHT FOR THE WORLD (LFTW) Austria, and Foundation Dark and Light Netherlands.
Since 2010, the SEHP has offered eye care services, teacher training, URE testing, health promotion, and health screening. It also performs operational research with the cooperation of Lions Aravind Institute of Community Ophthalmology (LAICO). SEHP aims to improve quality of life in children by eliminating blindness and visual disabilities due to uncorrected refractive errors, which is the main cause of visual impairment worldwide.
