In India, Sightsavers has four key eye health programs—Rural Eye Health (REH), Urban Eye Health (UEH), School Eye Health (SEH), and National Truckers Eye Health (NTEH). The REH program is designed to transform the eye health systems across the 100 most vulnerable rural districts by creating awareness and providing quality eye health services. The objective of the Vidyajyoti SEH program is to ensure good eye health in school children in public schools. This essentially includes vision screening of children, teachers' training, vision screening, and provision of quality eyeglasses. Recognizing the importance of eye health for the overworked truckers’ community the Raahi NTEH program aims at improving road safety by correcting the refractive error of the truck drivers. 

Sixty-year-old Rohitas lives in the Alwar district of Rajasthan. His eyesight problem began in 2020 when the pandemic was at its peak. The world had come to a halt then. Rohitas could hardly see anything after dark. Due to his poor vision, he faced issues in cooking. It was quite frustrating for him to cook half-burnt food. Getting the eyes checked was not an option, as Rohitas didn’t have enough money for it. He became extremely worried about spending his life with bad vision and less money.

In September, Rohitas heard an announcement from a moving van that was about a camp for the screening of eyes. Rohitas made up his mind to get his eyes tested. A free check-up was the only reason that encouraged him to go to the camp because shelling out even 30 to 40 bucks at this point was painful for him. After the screening was done, it was found that Rohitas had cataracts in both eyes and would require surgery for improvement in his vision. Before he could ask about the expenses, the hospital staff told them that the surgery will be done for free. That was a very big relief for Rohitas. After his blood pressure and sugar tests he was cleared for surgery and along with a few more patients he was taken to Shroff hospital for surgery. 

Rohitas shares, “Now after surgery, I can see very clearly when I wear spectacles. If I remove spectacles everything is blurry. I feel better now because my eyesight is back. I am earning better now. I had left farming when I was suffering from a cataract. But now I am back to crop farming along with goat farming. I make a profit from the farming that I am doing. Without good eyesight how can anyone do any work? But after surgery, I can work now.”

Sightsavers launched Vidyajyoti School Eye Health Programme with the goal that ‘good and maintained eye health’ is optimized in school children, so the improved learning outcomes in government schools are evident. This intervention aims to screen children in a Government school to identify and prevent eye diseases and vision impairments among children.

The programme has 8 components – Health education, health services, nutritional services, counseling, a healthy school environment, health promotion for staff, family/community involvement, and research or impact assessment, which can be broadly categorized under the three major constituents of service delivery, eye health awareness, and an enabling environment.

Thirteen-year-old Gayatri from Madhya Pradesh would often complain about having blurry eyesight to her parents. As a result, she struggled to cope with her school curriculum and participate in extracurricular activities. Gayatri felt left- out and excluded at her school.

Under Sightsavers’ School Eye Health Programme, Gayatri was identified with a bilateral congenital cataract by the refraction team visiting her school under Sightsavers’ Vidyajyoti School Eye Health Programme. She was referred to Sightsavers’ partner hospital for the surgery.

Today, Gayatri can see everything clearly and she has also become quite active in school activities. Gayatri’s parents felt gratified toward Sightsavers’ team for changing their daughter’s life.

Refractive error remains the biggest cause of visual impairment among school-going children. Sightsavers through its School Eye Health Programme, also known as Vidya Jyoti, aims to prevent eye diseases and vision impairment among children in the school-going age group.