Experience of WSD at Delhi ……..

By Shanthakumari Gopal
gshantha@sightsavers.org

It was then, Prasannaji entered into the room, giving his mobile to me, asking…. talk to her. Surprisingly at the other end was Elizabeth Madam, within a fraction of second I could realize I was at the peak of excitement, of course the content of the discussion made me to that level of excitement!! At the end she asked me, Shantha, could you suggest someone who could help us in setting a context for the gender discussion during the world sight day of Vision 2020. Immediately tried recollecting couple of names but in such an excitement I couldn’t even get people’s exact names that I know very personally…. strangeJ.

Later on, forwarded few names that I felt would be ideal for this sort of events. Almost a week passed, unexpectedly, one day received a mail from RD informing me, prepare a ppt on a given topic and you could present it during the WSD event in Delhi. It was a great surprise for me. In fact I had been dreaming to get an invitation to attend the event, vested interest is to get a chance to listen my favorite gender expert’s (whom I suggested) deliberations. Never dreamt I would myself get the chance to present the topic.
Looking at the given topic I was then interested to do it on my own, more than me my colleagues out here encouraged me, saying I could add value to the event!

Throughout the process of developing the ppt, we had lots of discussions within our team, however, Prasannaji and I felt strongly that major part of the presentation should focus clarifying the concept of Gender rather than focusing on technical aspects of eye care and we agreed upon.

The day has come, reached Delhi at around 9 pm on 6 Oct 09. Having waited considerable time at the Airport, managed to trace the taxi, in which the next day’s moderator Dr Shetty had been waiting for more than an hour. With lot of embarrassment got into the taxi and formally introduced myself. By the time finished our introduction we already reached the huge army campus “IDSA”.

As soon as entered the lobby, met Paritosh (from one of our partner), his first response was, so, finally you are the one going to present the topic on Gender, he continued… you know we have listed nearly 21 members for this topic starting from Shobha De (the eminent novelist)!! and your name was last in the list. On the process of finalization, seems my name as the only name stayed back, thus I got the wonderful opportunityJ

When I met Dr Ghose (the chief of RP Centre) his immediate response was, no..no ………this face is not familiar to me in Sightsavers”, then he turned to me and asked, when is Elizabeth expected to the workshop? Which hinted me, it’s his strategy to confirm whether I am from the same Sightsavers which he has been closely associated and known very personally for years. My response might have made him to convince I am from the same Sightsavers!

7 Oct 09, the day was set to begin, it was nicely arranged compact hall with the capacity of around 200 -250 chairs. At a surprise George, Akbar and Prabhat were there, saying, “We three of us have come to give you the full support Shantha, very sweet of themJ.

The main session started where I was the 2nd speaker, as my time was nearing, could feel a small butterfly flying inside the stomach!!. Reason is, although Gender is one of my favorite and a subject very close to my heart, since then preparing the ppt I was bit worried how to put things in 10 mints time. Most of the time people fail to give clarity and the gender sessions ends up with blame games!!. The several Gender sessions I have facilitated during my carrier, sessions always gone beyond hours, where I was comfortably managed to convey the message I wanted.

Finally, my presentation went for nearly 20-25 mits, after the presentation there was a loud response and reactions – in a positive manner which showed people got some strong message from the presentation. Over all it was an amazing experienceJ.

As soon as I was back, got the first message from the tired-less moderator Samvaad, so the lady is back to office…. will you write something about your experience? Shweta sent the message. In one of the mail from Archana, she said, waiting to hear your experience. Thus I made up my mind to write this.

I take this opportunity to send a message herewith, as this is need of the hour; we have to seriously reflect the proportion in which our services are reaching men and women. The simple mathematics is (as per the prevalence rate among women and men 74%-26%) every 26 men we treat for cataract, we need to proportionately treat 74 women……………………..

Another amazing experience, meeting the Ambassador Smt.Hema Malini which was too good!

Thank you for reading…..

White and Red Independence

By Ketan Kothari
kkothari@sightsavers.org

Every year, on October 15 I am reminded that in spite of the fact of being blind, it is still possible to go miles. White cane which is a constant companion has ensured that we are able to achieve almost everything that we desire. Of course, the significance of white cane cannot be exaggerated.

However, the cane as we know was not the same in the years gone by. It was only in the 20th century that the cane has acquired the shape that we see today. In 1921 one James Biggs claimed to have invented the cane in its present state. In 1930’s, with the support of lions movement the white cane became more popular amongst the blind in Europe and the United States. However, at the end of World War II the importance of the cane grew as many war blinded veterans returned and needed support. In 1950’s Dr. Richard Hoover initiated the “Hoover method of walking” which is even prevalent today.

There was a great demand in the USA in 60’s to designate 15 October as “White Cane Safety Day” and on 6 Oct. 1964 American congress passed a resolution which resulted in President Johnson declaring 15 Oct. as “White Cane Safety Day”

Why white? This has been a question that many people have been asking. White is visible in the dark and ensures safety for the blind while they are negotiating the traffic.

Why Red? Red is the colour that is a signal to stop so if a blind pedestrian is walking on the road, the traffic slows down or even stops.

We are all very proud of our white cane as it not only enables to travel independently but also signifies our independence and gives us confidence to travel all over the place and achieve whatever we wish. Sometimes I say “if all desert, I can still survive but without my cane, I am helpless.

Diwali Glitter is Here!

We wish you all very happy diwali.

Identify the Celebrities ?

Yes, this is a quick memory test for you ! Identify the celebs here and win exiciting prizes :-)

Results:

All 4 - Correct : Here we have some strong Bournvita and Complan kidults !

3 Correct : Stressed for Nobel Peace Prize going to Obama. Relax plz ! Easy .

2 Correct : There are people beyond cricketers.

1 Correct : Rx 2 almonds in morning soaked in water at night w.e.f. today.

0 Correct : We understand, it happens when we underspend ;-)

**** **** **** ****

My First Visit to NEAO

By Emily Sajan (esajan@sightsavers.org)
Senior Programme Support Officer


It was my first visit to NEAO. I have always fascinated about the picture printed on the annual report and finally when I got the chance to see it by myself, I was completely thrilled. During my two day visit to NEAO, I attended the RoP Workshop and visited the mobile boat clinic at SHIS (hospital too).



RoP Workshop, 4th October


The fifth RoP awareness workshop held in partnership with Priyamvada Birla Aravind Eye Hospital, Kolkata on 4th October 2009. The workshop was conducted by Chief instructor Dr. Rajvardhan Azad from Rajendra Prasad Centre, AIIMS and the local hospitality and logistical support was rendered by Dr. Abhijit Chattarjee and his team from Priyamvada Birla Aravind Eye Hospital, Kolkata.


Faculty for the Workshop included:
- Prof. Rajvardhan Azad, chief instructor, Rajendra Prasad Centre, All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
- Dr. Parijat Chandra, Associate Professor, R. P. Centre, AIIMS
- Dr. Ramesh Agarwal, Paediatrician, AIIMS
- Dr. V Narendran, Retina Surgeon, Aravind Eye Hospital, Coimbatore


At the end, the participants were given Certificates of Participation which jointly signed by Dr. Rajvardhan Azad representing AIIMS, Dr. Abhijit Chatterjee representing Priyamvada Birla Aravind Eye Hospital and Emily Sajan representing Sightsavers. From Sightsavers partners, VMA Ophthalmologist, Sundarban Social Development Centre (SSDC) Ophthalmologist and the president and 2 persons from SUSRUT Eye Foundation & Research Centre attended the workshop.


The workshop was very well organized and it was a grand success. The feed back was very good and especially the paediatricians commented that they would like to have such a workshop after six months or so. In a separate meeting Dr. Azad mentioned about the next workshops. He suggested that we could have it in Kochin and Bhubaneshwar during Jan and Feb 2010, as he is now busy with ROP World Congress etc.


My visit to SHIS, 5th October


As planned, on 5th October Shanthakumari, accompanied me to one of the general health check up camp organized by SHIS at Nazat islands. It took 3 hours – 1 ½ hrs to reach the Dhamakali boat jetty and another 1 ½ hrs by boat to Nazat. On our way to Nazat, the project staff briefed us the functioning of SHIS projects in these islands. There are about 100 islands in the Sundarban areas and only 54 are inhabited.

SHIS is currently rendering services to 32 islands and they cover all these 32 islands in rotation. SHIS runs four mobile boat dispensaries which caters basic health services including basic eye care services to the people in the remote islands. The mobile boat travels across the islands and provide the basic health services including vision testing and refraction. An Optometrist is taking care of the patients’ eye care needs in the boat. Sightsavers has given equipment support for upgrading these boats. The maintenance and running cost of the boat is met partly by WB Govt. and the donations received from Mr. Domenique Lapier.


On our return journey they served lunch in the boat. Post lunch we have visited SHIS hospital in Kolkata.

In evening, I had a quick shopping spree. Thanks to Bandana, Praveen and Divya (his better half) to accompany me for shopping.



On 6th Oct, we all celebrated the birthday of Bandana (which was on 3rd Oct) by cutting cake in office.

Offcourse, I did brought back the sweet memories and Sandesh back to Mumbai. This is it from my visit, hope to have more such visits for enriching experience.

Kisanganj Case Study Presentation @ LAICO, Madurai: 27th & 28th Sept. 09

By Sudipta Mohanty (smohanty@sightsavers.org)

Programme Manager, NEAO

An unexpected call while I was travelling in Koraput, Orissa along with our CEO paved my way to attend the Global Consultation on Enabling Environment for Eye Care at LAICO.

Even though I was a bit reluctant to attend it sacrificing my dussera holidays with family, the lure of being invited as a guest speaker among the dignitaries like Dr. Para and others convinced me to be there. When I looked at other dignitaries who would be presenting along with me I realized that I need to make a thorough preparation for the session on our Public Private Partnership Project in Kisangani, Bihar. I was confident and I didn’t want to loose this opportunity to highlight our work in Bihar. The prep started with discussion on presentation with Prasanna and Suvendu (e-discussion as he was on leave) to get their perception about the project. After some deliberation, we could finalize a draft framework regarding the session.

The next hassle was to get my tickets booked till Madurai. After a lot of permutation and combination, we finalized to fly via Delhi to Chennai and than to Madurai. Thanks to Somnath, our new Programme Administrator who helped me in finding out all the possible connection (with cost consideration) to the destination. I booked myself in the Air India flight from Ranchi to Delhi and than from Delhi to Chennai without having a clue that I would run in to problem because of the Air India employee strike. Till two hours before the departure of the flight, I was not informed whether the flight would take off that day or not. Thankfully, it did.

It was around middle of the session, when I reached LAICO and was astonished to see that there were around 50 participants, some of them were known faces and some are from abroad as well. I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Manikutti from IIM, Ahmedabad, Mr. Amarjeet Singh from Gov. of Gujarat and other such dignitaries. During the lunch time, I took the opportunity to meet Dr. Para and discussed about my visit along with CEO. He was quite inquisitive about the PPP approach and promised to visit the project during his next tour to India.

My session started after the lunch with a video show on Surat City transformation and it was inspiring to see that individual commitment , support of a team and consistency in approach was the key in bringing Surat city from the plague affected city to its modern day grandeur. I was correlating with the Kishanganj initiative and trying to figure out whether we had similar stages in the success of the project? Probably to some extent yes.

After a brief introduction given by Shashi, I started presenting on the Kishanganj Public Private Partnership project and how an enabling environment has been created in Bihar to work with government hospital as far as eye care is concerned.

My presentation was about 45 min. instead of the 30 min. allotted to me. I presented some data about Bihar, success indicators of the project and proposed an eye care service delivery framework for the state of Bihar. The presentation was well appreciated from the fact that it invited lot of inquisitive questions from the participants. Most of them were interested in knowing the cost share mechanism involved in the project and some asked about the sustainability of the effort and some also refuted the surgery per district statistics presented by me. However it was a very interactive session and finally Dr. Para was invited to sum up the discussion by giving his reflection on the whole session.

A dinner was organized at the hotel in the same evening and we discussed lot of issues and I tried to establish some contacts with the big wigs of the sector. I also had, the opportunity to meet few people from Philippines and we discussed about their eye care programme in the country. As a whole the journey though a bit hectic, it provided a great opportunity to meet a host of dignitaries and it was an honor for me to be among them.

I wonder how LAICO has managed to bring so many people around the globe every year to this October Summit. It must be the charismatic leadership of Mr. Thulashiraj and the quality of training provided by the institution. I feel proud to be an alumnus of this institute and look forward to avail similar opportunity in future…

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.

Vision 2020 Celebrated World Sight Day, New Delhi

I know you might be expecting another update on MEC's eye care mela held at Dharavi. Though, for a change, I am taking you to the national celebration by VISION 2020 on 7th and 8th Oct, 2009 held at IDSA Auditorium, Institute of Defence Studies & Analysis, New Delhi. This year's WSD theme was “Gender & eye health – equal access to care”.

On 7th Oct, under session 2 on VISION 2020 INDIA member organizations’ Perspective and Experiences, Sightsavers representative Ms Shanthakumari Gopal from North East Area Office (Kolkatta) got the opprotunity to share the experiences of on gender issues. Her presentation
titled "Gender Inequity: Findings from research and experiential learning" started with case study followed by the concept of gender, its impact, facts and its correlation with eye health.

Some highlights from the presentation are as follows:

- On average, the rate cataracts are operated is 1.5 times higher for men than women
- Blind or visually impaired women may not seek examination and care because of cultural constraints, cost, Travel or lack of access to information
- When women are denied equal access to health services, education and employment they are less able to care for themselves and their family

Later in the evening a media meeting and dinner was organized with the brand ambassodor of VISION 2020, Ms Hema Malini.

While day 1 (7th Oct) witnessed a full day discourse on the theme of WSD, day 2 (8th Oct) called for a half day discussion on "Integrating eye health in the National Health
System – A Gender based perspective" under the chair of Dr G V S Murthy (AIIMS).

World Sight Day Celebration : Day 1

By Sabitra Kundu

The World Sight Day celebration from 5th October started to mark the launch of events that would culminate with the grand “eye-care mela” at Dharavi on the 8th of October 09. Lined up through the stretch of 4 days, are a host of events. On 5th Oct, launch of the MEC logo followed by inauguration of MEC logo and kiosks by by renowned cine star Mr. Naseeruddin Shah at Khan Bahadur Haaji Bachoo Ali (KBHB) Eye Hospital at Parel.

Day 1:
Monday the 5th of October was a dark and gloomy day and nature was conspiring against us with rains pouring torrentially all across the city. Contrary to the norms of mother nature for this time of the year it was raining cats and dogs and water logging was reported from various parts of the metropolis. Bhavana was forced to take recourse of her son’s school rhymes and was heard humming all morning imploring “rains to go to Spain” so that smooth flow of events could take place.

With the rains continuing to play spoilsport and roads getting water logged all of us had a tough time reaching the venue and we were more concerned with our star guest been able to make it to the venue in time. However, we were unnecessarily worrying as the guest dressed in beige jacket and navy blue shirt arrived on time.

On arrival, Naseerji was taken on a guided tour to the hospital. The official programme started at 3:15 PM at the KBHB conference hall which was beautifully decked up with one of the railway kiosks, banners (featuring the portrait and signature of Naseerji himself), posters and balloons printed with MEC logo.

Event Highlights
After welcome and introductory speeches by Ms Elizabeth & Ms Katrina, Naseer ji inaugurated the kiosk followed by the release of MEC pilot project report. As memento, metallic badges with MEC logo was pinned to all the dais members by Ms Prema (Lotus College of Optometry).

Naseerji then delivered a wonderful speech in which he not only spoke of his experience living in blind school during the filming of his epic film “Sparsh” but also about one of his beloved professor who had gone blind years ago.
His confession of the fact that often the cause is over shadowed by celebrity endorsement and is limited to inaugurations and high profile corporate dinners, which actually dilutes the purpose. This statement drew rapturous applause from the audience for his insight. He ended his stirring speech with a commitment to support the cause in whatever little way he could as he always felt that actor’s (like himself) were underworked and overpaid and he would feel having done something useful than just entertaining people.

Around 4:00 p.m., Dr. Chandrasekhar (KBHB) concluded with the vote of thanks and invited all to join for some light snacks and tea. From print media DNA and Times of India were present. While Doordarshan captured the glimpse in short recording. Naseerji went shortly after following a detailed discussion with Elizabeth Ma’am and pledging once more his support for the cause.

Let’s Call it a Day!
Come rain or hale the event we proved that we could pull off an event (even with last minute glitches) and it was elevating to hear that the railway kiosks were generating a large no. of footfalls and was a grand success in the opening day. But more of that on day 2 for series of MEC and WSD events… Not to mention Kalpana and Shrinivas was too happy to have rubbed shoulders with the celebrity in a group photograph. While Shweta, Ranjish, Rajesh and Ketan were busy discussing about his extempore speech.

While you are wondering who has taken these photographs, all credit goes to Andrew (photographer from UK). He will cover this entire week’s event.

Testing Moments on Ground Zero !
While we all breathed a sigh of relief after the event, there was much hoopla and topsy-turvy moments behind the screen. Here’s a shot at it.

The event for launch of MEC logo was scheduled at 3 p.m. and at the ninth moment, 10:45 a.m. SCB informed that they were had called off the press conference and calling their contacts in the “fourth estate” stating that since its raining heavily there is slightest of chances that our guest will attend. Since, media coverage was in the hands of SCB. Our hearts skipped a beat and blood pressure raised a little as we got down to crisis management as it was too late to inform Naseerji about the cancellation and ask him to give the event a skip for a latter date (as SCB wanted).

A quick (standing) meeting was conducted and we decided to go ahead any way as backing out was not an option at this stage. Following this, the team worked furiously to call up people and press and requested them for attending the event. An alternative schedule was worked out and braving the rains our team set forth for KBHB hospital.

Many thanks are due to Mr Nitin Makasare as he was instrumental in liaisoning with Naseer Ji all through this event.

“Kodak Moment of the Day”
While Naseer ji sat of the dais, he saw Ketan perched in second row. He stepped down and greeted him with a warm hand shake. Ketan was touched and so are we.

Click! Click!

Why Gender & Eye Health on this World Sight Day?

By : Shanthakumari Gopal (sgopal@sightsavers.org)

Programme Officer - NEAO


My 15 years of intensive work experience in HIV and AIDS, gender, dalits and adhivasis rights, made myself so immune to look at any issues with that perspective. The third day of my work in eye care field was a visit to one of the hospital partner. Going through various records and documents, one thing strike me was the data where slightly larger number of women accessing eye care services in the free and subsidy sections. Hence forth my search began to find out the facts, on the process…. brought out the discussion with many Ophthalmologists but many of them responded that women and men are equally affected by eye diseases. It was hard to accept hence tried reading various journals then understood that the eye care issues are highly prevalent among women due to various factors.


Vision 2020 theme for the year 2009 is “Gender and Eye Health”. It is a well thought of theme at this juncture where a great level of disparity occurs in terms of accessing eye care services by men and women. Salute to the person/team that thought of this theme.


Two out of every three people in the world who are blind are women, 90% of blindness occurs in the developing world. Women and girls who are blind are doubly disadvantaged by their gender and their disability status. Surveys of Asian and African countries where cataract is the biggest cause of blindness have shown that women can account for as high a proportion as 74% of all people living with cataract.


What is gender?

To understand the theme Gender and Eye Health, first we should know what Gender is. Gender at a descriptive level refers to social differences between men and women. Gender at an analytical level refers to power relations between men and women. In other words, Gender describe those characteristics of men and women which are socially determined in contrast to those which are biologically determined. The fact is that only sex – the biological difference can differentiate men and women.


People are born male and female but learn to be girls and boys and grow into women and men. The socially constructed roles and responsibilities of men and women cleverly marginalize woman as a second class citizen and strategically denying their fundamental rights. Through reinforcing the set roles and responsibilities from the child birth women and girl children are confined within a limited circle, which keeps them away from getting exposed to the out side world resulting women with low self esteem and empowerment.


However the scenario is, women do 67 per cent of the world’s work, yet their earnings for it amount to only 10 % of the world’s income - according to UN statistics. Also, women are the central to success of poverty alleviation efforts but our policy makers fail to recognise the strategic potential of women as critical actors in the process of moving their families out of poverty.


In reality, due to the second class status women are exploited and denied basic rights which leads more than 70% of women in Indian society suffer from Anaemia and various other diseases including eye diseases and blindness.


Factors for high prevalence among women:

Although a limited explanation available with regard to gender disparities in blindness, the following are considered as some of the factors resulting high prevalence among women.

• Life expectancy of women is higher than men.


• Women much less likely access eye care information, services compare with that of men due to social, cultural and economic factors.


• Women of all ages are more frequently exposed to causative factors such as infectious disease and malnutrition.

Need of the hour:

We are well aware, through our eye care services we ultimately aim the society to have a better health thus live away from poverty and hunger. To alleviate poverty and hunger women should be in the centre of all process including our eye care services. So the need of the hour is …….

• Eye care professionals and policy makers should recognize that eye care issues and blindness is highly prevalent among women.


• The eye care organization should bring gender as one of its mandate to ensure equal access by both the sex. More women should be on board involving planning, monitoring and evaluation of the programmes and projects.


• To achieve equal coverage, women should account for around 65-70% of all cataract surgical cases. Blindness and severe visual impairment from cataract could be reduced by around 12.5% in low and middle income countries if women were to receive cataract surgery at the same rate as men