Fiji’s High Commissioner to India, HE Yogesh Punja, and the Australian Labor Party advisor and former NSW Parliament candidate, Aisha Amjad, today participated in a vision screening campaign in Delhi and distributed spectacles to school children.

The campaign, which screened around 600 children in the Government Sarvodaya Co-Ed Senior Secondary School at Kitchener Road, Malcha Marg and coordinated by S S Tanwar, President, Rajasthan Ophthalmic Association, concluded with the distribution of 50 spectacles to needy children with refractive errors.

The screening was part of India Vision Institute’s Eye See & I Learn campaign.

HE Yogesh Punja said “vision screening and correction glasses are the best possible ways to prevent avoidable blindness.”

“I am happy to be able to participate in IVI’s campaign for underprivileged children in Delhi,” he added.

IVI CEO Vinod Daniel said “screening campaigns such as these will go a long way in benefiting children from less privileged backgrounds by helping them learn better through improved vision. I thank Mr Tanwar for his help in coordinating the campaign with IVI.”

“India Vision Institute is working to deliver vision care services to underprivileged communities across India. Our Eye See & I Learn and Eye See & I Work initiatives have reached out to over 200,ooo people and have provided free glasses to them,” he noted.

IVI has to date conducted around 400 vision screening programs in and around Chennai and other cities in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Pondicherry, West Bengal, New Delhi, Haryana and Mizoram. Around 200,000 individuals from the underprivileged communities (including over 1, 17, 706 children) have been screened and free spectacles distributed to around 20,000 individuals (including 10,000 children).