WSD Celebrations @ Mumbai Stations : 5th to 7th Oct, 2009

By Bhavana Pande

The first day (5th Oct) started of with heavy rains slashing through the entire city. It seemed impossible to get started and even if it didn’t, it would have been justified. But the commitment of the health workers headed by Supriya ( Lotus college of optometry) , Deepak (KBHB Hospital), Aqua Theatre group and NSS volunteers stood apart, we decided come whatever we will go ahead as planned. The response by mid day was encouraging,all stalls recorded a huge number of people enquiring about eye care, discussing their problems and looking for guidance. The railway station event found exceptional support and success even in the face of adversaries.

On the 6th & 7th, I along with Katrina & Andrew (Sightsavers International, U.K.) visited the MEC stalls at Andheri, Dadar and CST. We left early to beat the traffic and reached to a huge crowd waiting to be addressed. We couldn’t’ resist watching form a corner and before long were in the crowd helping Supriya and her team to meet the need of the crowd that was thronging at the stall. We were astonished at the number of people we were able to reach out to; the energy and the excitement of the team at the stall was very encouraging and we wasted no time and got clicking some very good moments, as is seen in the pictures.

The CST station now known as the”Slumdog” station amongst visitors was our next stop. The structure itself was awe inspiring for us and once the crowd started coming by we had no time to waste. Here we had the highest number of footfalls among the seven stations in all three days. According to the register maintained at these stalls only at the CST station a total of 770 people came and registered themselves at the stall with their contact details.

People actively took part in the screenings at the stalls and it was a great sight to see young and old throng to be screened. What was also interesting to note that as our staff screened people the bypassers were actually seen imitating the actions and going in for self eye screening. Hats off to the entire team manning the railway stalls for having accomplished such a major 3 day, 12 hr task of creating awareness.

Not to mention Ketan and I had to run from pillar to post to get all the necessary approvals from Railways. Sightsavers & our partners would also like to thank the railway authorities for their unconditional support and co-operation for the event.