SHILLONG: Mawlai Umjaiur was declared as ‘Avoidable Blindness Free Village’ at a progrmme organized in the area on December 9 by Bansara Eye Care Centre (BECC) in collaboration with Operation Eyesight Universal (OEU).
These two bodies have been working together since 2014 with the main objective of eliminating avoidable blindness to address the problem of eye care and the importance of ‘Avoidable Blindness’ in its project area of Mawlai and Pynthor.
Avoidable Blindness Free Village is a concept which has been developed, tested and achieved by “Operation Eyesight” which ensures that all villages irrespective of gender are provided with opportunity to undergo eye checkup and treated for curable eye conditions to regain better vision.
Mawlai Umjaiur has a total population of around 3131 persons with a total number of 745 households.
Two eye camps have been conducted in the area by Bansara Eye Care Centre till date.
A total number of 12 cataract surgeries were performed till date.
Many Health Education (Eye Health and General Health) programmes have been conducted from the beginning of the project in 2014 till date by the Community Health Worker (CHW) where around 520 participants (Male: 118, Female: 246, Male Child: 65, Female Child: 91) benefitted from awareness programme.
A resurvey was conducted two months prior to the declaration day whereby all the cases related to eye problems were verified and checked by the optometrist as well as the ophthalmologists
