World Sight Day

Campaign to raise awareness about preventable sight loss on
World Sight Day

This 13th October marks World Sight Day, which galvanizes the eye health community o draw attention on a global level about Blindness and vision impairment. This year we proudly team up with the European Forum Against Blindness and the European Coalition for Vision on a campaign to raise awareness about preventable sight loss. Blindness and vision loss can be prevented or treated in at least 50% of cases, but screening and early diagnosis are key to make this happen.

To mark this day, we are launching a social media campaign to spread a simple message: We need to talk about eyes! Vision loss and blindness require the immediate attention of national and European policymakers. As Europeans live longer and longer, we need improved mechanisms for screening and identifying eye diseases early on, especially with at risk groups such as people affected by diabetes or other chronic diseases. This helps us realise the objective of a healthy ageing European population.

Join us online for World Sight Day on 13 October – the idea is simple!

· Click on the one of the attachments below.

· Print the message that you would like to spread or print a blank one and compose your own message.

· Hold the message high and take a selfie (or ask someone to take a photo of you)

· Post it on Twitter or Facebook using the campaign hashtag (#EyeHealthEU) and the World Sight Day hashtags (#WorldSightDay, #WSD2016)

As advocating with one collective voice is central to making eye health a priority for national governments and to improve vision awareness among the general population, we look forward to receiving your selfies!