I am happy to share the success story of the first Karnataka statewide voluntary organisation project on eye care by a woman entrepreneur, Dr. Surekha, and her husband. My role is that of a Pro-Bono Advisor, mentor and also a voluntary social media creator for them. The organisation, ‘Nayonika Vision Wall’, aims to create eye care awareness.

Eye disorders are one of the main public health concerns in India. Cataract and refractive disorders, for instance, can lead to blindness;however, they can be avoided if screened, diagnosed, and treated in a timely fashion.

It is possible to attain this by tackling the problems with intensive eye care campaigns and programmes aiming to fight and reduce the incidence of avoidable blindness. One way of addressing this issue is by spreading awareness regarding eye disorders, educating people about eye health, and enabling them to comprehend the steps required to protect  eyes. Unfortunately, awareness regarding eye diseases/disorders is low among the general masses in most states of India. Lack of knowledge about eye health among the public has led to negligence of eye health, thereby leading to a late diagnosis of disorders which, if diagnosed at the appropriate time, can be treated adequately and the incidence of avoidable blindness can be reduced significantly.

In order to disseminate awareness among the local communities in India and to reduce the incidence of avoidable blindness in India, Nayonika Eye Care Charity Trust (NECT) has come up with the concept of ‘Nayonika Vision Wall’ - a self-screening vision test project. The concept of ‘Nayonika Vision Wall’ is to create mass awareness through posters as well as smart technology -- where no medical operator, specialised instrument or doctor are required for screening. It can be done by the patient themselves by understanding the instructions and guidance, to gain a better assessment of your vision. The offline posters are based on eye awareness and eye-self screening tests, which are positioned at many strategic public places including corporates, government schools in east Bangalore, and primary health centres across the state of Karnataka. The posters enable people to conduct eye tests free of cost and to assess their own vision using the instructions provided on the posters, thereby, creating awareness and improving eye care knowledge.he test instructions and guidance are in Kannada and English.

This project is being executed in phases over a period of time. The first phase of the Nayonika Vision Wall (NVW) was launched on December 23rd, 2017 in Karnataka with the support of Government of Karnataka and the implementation shall continue as a long-term with the guidance of National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB) and Government of India.

• From 23 Dec 2017 to 26 Jan 2018, 1000 NVW will be installed in 1000 centres across Karnataka.

• From 27 Jan 2018 to 31 Mar 2018, 3000 NVW will be installed in all the Primary Health Centres (PHCs) and district head offices across Karnataka.

• From 1 Apr 2018 to 30 Jun 2018, NVW will be installed in all the sub-health centres’ across the state.

NECT is moving in the right direction of lowering vision problems by creating awareness to the public, which is a key factor. As an overall goal, the Nayonika Vision Wall project works with the aim of lowering vision problems across all the states in India and to enable our country to be an ‘avoidable blind-free nation’. This line of thinking resonates perfectly with the aim to ‘make a visible difference’.

This self-test tool for vision check called Nayonika Vision Wall is being installed in over 10,000 Primary Health Centres in 31 districts of Karnataka with focus on 12 backward districts where the Trust will perform free cataract surgeries for the needy.

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