Sahyadri will facilitate at least 12 cornea collection in a year and register 5,000 Eye Donors through Awareness drives in 164 villages of Chiplun, India. Sahyadri will involve hospitals, local governing bodies and will also hold 15 Free Eye Check up camps to maximize the reach.
1% of blind people in India are bilaterally corneal blind out of which only approximately 60,000 can be delivered vision by penetrating keratoplasty. Rest 50% cannot be provided vision due to associated involvement of posterior segment. Considering annual addition of 20,000 fresh cases of corneal blindness, maximum utilization of collected corneas and back log of corneal blindness and India needs approximately 140,000 eye donors as of today against 40,621 cornea collection as per NPCB.
To overcome lack of awareness and counselling, Sahyadri will conduct awareness drives in 164 villages of Chiplun including National Eye Donation Fortnight, 15 free Eye Check Up Camps with the help of eye specialists, local governing bodies. Slide shows, short films, poster exhibits will be used to encourage people to register for eye donation. Sahyadri aims registration of 5000 eye donors and at least 12 instances of cornea collection this year which will be sent to Drushti Daan Eye Bank Sangali
Sahyadri started first ever organized eye donation campaign and cornea collection in Konkan ten months ago resulting six instances of cornea collection and registration of 500 eye donors in the region. Continuous awareness drives, creating sense of pride among next-of-kin of eye donors by publicizing their decision in newspapers will increase number of eye donors. Sahyadri aims to conduct eye donation drive, build a network of volunteers, eye specialists in entire Ratnagiri district in 2 years.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
