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On the occasion of the World Sight Day Orange Foundation and the Armenian Eye Care Project (AECP) have presented the scope of projects implemented in the eye care domain, the press service of Orange Foundation reports.

The cooperation between Orange Foundation and Armenian Eye Care Project started in 2011, as part of “Bringing Sight to Armenian Eyes” project, aimed at provision of quality eye care services to the inhabitants of rural areas with the help of a mobile hospital. Since then in the scope of the project more than 66,000 people (54,000 adults and 12,000 children) in regions have received free eye screenings, 5,044 operations and laser treatments have been performed and 23,631 eye glasses distributed. This year, as part of this project, inhabitants of Ararat, Vayots Dzor, Syunik and Gegharkunik regions have already received free eye care screenings and treatment in Mobile eye hospital. Today Mobile eye hospital launches its activity in Armavir.

The activity of Orange Foundation has been complemented by a special attention to the prevention of blindness of children. One of such projects implemented this year in partnership with UMAF is the “Lunette pur l’Armenie” project, in the frame of which 6,200 eye screenings were performed and 240 personalized eye glasses distributed to the children of Gegharkunik region. Now Orange Foundation is implementing in partnership with AECP a new initiative in this domain – “Take a Selfie and help a child to fight blindness” campaign launched on September 30, as part of which more than 610 eye glasses will be distributed to the children of Armavir region.

“Unfortunately, the number of people with sight issues is quite significant in Armenia, however part of these are curable if detected at an early stage and treated accordingly. Helping children and people with visual disabilities is one of the pillar activities implemented by Orange Foundation. During the 3 years of its activity, Orange Foundation has completed a number of initiatives aimed at supporting people with visual problems, increasing the availability of quality eye care services and prevention of blindness especially outside Yerevan. With our new online campaign initiative, we want to complement the work conducted for more than 3 years and provide our customers with the opportunity to show solidarity by contributing to the very important goal of prevention of blindness,” said Francis Gelibter, the Chairman of Board of the Orange Foundation.

“Take a selfie and help a child to fight blindness” online campaign is aimed at mobilizing society for the cause of aiding children who have visual diseases and preventing blindness through provision of screenings and distribution of eye glasses to those who need one. As part of the project, till the 9th of October including, every selfie sent to Orange Armenia Facebook page would result into a pair of free eye glasses to one child from the Armavir region. Since the launch of the campaign, already 667 people have contributed to the initiative submitting their selfies to Orange Armenia Facebook page. Eye screenings and preparation of the glasses will be performed in Armavir region by medical groups of the AECP in the course of October-November.

“Today is the World Sight Day, which is celebrated in many countries of the world. We are pleased that the AECP, together with its partners, has been carrying out special events for more than ten years and voices problems that people with eye diseases have. Armenia is also part of the Global Action Plan targeting to reduce avoidable blindness by 25%, by 2019. A lot has been done, but yet so much needs to be done and we are happy to have such partners, and hope to continue our cooperation in the framework of the program “Bringing Sight to Armenian Eyes. We are pleased with the results of the “One Selfie = one pair of eyeglasses” and think that not only the children of Armavir but also of other regions will benefit from that,” said Nune Yeghiazaryan, Country Director of the Armenian Eye Care Project.

Amongst the other projects implemented by Orange Foundation in the domain of eye care is the creation of a Resource center equipped with Braille printers in N14 Special School for children with sight problems, where earlier the Foundation opened a computer classroom equipped with necessary audio programs. Special orphanage after Marie Izmirlian was as well supported by the Orange Foundation at the beginning of this year, where a center with specialized educational materials and equipment to facilitate educational process of children with visual impairments was opened by the Foundation.

AECP, charitable organization with a mission to eliminate preventable blindness and make eye care accessible to all people in Armenia, has implemented a number of projects, amongst which, “Bringing Sight to Armenian Eyes” project, initiated in 2003, and continued in partnership with Orange Foundation after 2011, “Center of Excellence for the Prevention of Childhood Blindness” implemented in partnership with USAID, aimed at making specialized eye care services available for children and prevention of childhood blindness, creation of an educational portal for family doctors and first line specialists in partnership with the Orange Foundation, revitalization of the regional eye care system, and many others.