Walking blindfolded along with visually impaired school children, celebrated painter, Mr. Jatin Das will lead the SCEH-IVI Walk in the Dark to eradicate ‘preventable’ blindness in Daryaganj, Delhi on 18th Oct 2015 (Sunday) at 8:00, in the morning.

India is home to 131 million visually impaired people; and it has been estimated that over 80% of global visual impairment is preventable or treatable. Uncorrected Refractive Error is one of the major causes of blindness worldwide. The Indian economy loses potential productivity worth INR 126,500 crores or $23 billion due to uncorrected refractive errors – an avoidable cause of blindness.

Over 400 people from all walks of life will walk along with the visually challenged school children  in support of the cause, including several local dignitaries, students from  Optometry and other schools and colleges and staff of Dr Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital (SCEH) and India Vision Institute (IVI) carrying placards and banners with eye care messages.

SCEH will be partnering the IVI initiative to create awareness about the importance of eye care, through the Walk being organized in the Daryaganj area in New Delhi.

“A 100 year old leader in eye care service, SCEH stands tall among the quality eye health institutions of India. It is proud to partner IVI in the walk to highlight the cause of combating blindness in India, most of which is ‘preventable’, said Mr.Arun  Arora, CEO of Dr.Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital.

“There is a direct correlation between learning and vision and it is unfortunate that crores of Indian school children can’t achieve their full potential because they do not have access to a pair of glasses”, said IVI CEO, Mr Mr Vinod Daniel. Similar Walks organized at Chennai in November 2014 and Hyderabad in April 2015 received enthusiastic response, including from the media. While popular actress Khushboo Sundar led the Walk in Chennai; Ms Lakhmi Manchu did the honours in Hyderabad. Over the next twelve months IVI will be organising walks in a number of other Indian cities including Bangalore and Mumbai.

Established in 1914, SCEH has a passion to build a world free of preventable blindness and deafness, driven by compassion towards the society at large. It strongly believes in building sustainable and affordable eye/ear care delivery systems which reach out to the remotest of areas of our country. It has chosen to focus on Comprehensive Eye & Ent Care, Quality consciousness, Community Impact, Research, Publication & training and above all, Transparncy as the building blocks for the future.

Established in 2011, IVI acts as a catalyst to help India achieve socially responsible, high quality vision care IVI is an initiative of the L V Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad and the Brien Holden Vision Institute, Sydney. Indian Optometric Association is also supporting the event.