CooperVision, India Vision Institute campaign to vision screen 4500 underprivileged Mumbai kids

Seventy-one children from Navi Mumbai today received free spectacles. This follows vision screenings organised by the India Vision Institute (IVI) in partnership with the Laxmi Charitable Trust, Panvel, Navi Mumbai.

The initiative is supported by CooperVision, one of the world's leading manufacturers of soft contact lenses.

Today's spectacles distribution at the National Urdu School, Taloja, Navi Mumbai, is part of the 4500 screenings being undertaken by IVI in Mumbai and its suburbs, as a part of its Eye See and I Learn campaign.

The spectacles were distributed in the presence of Vinod Daniel, CEO, India Vision Institute,and Arnab Sarkar, Director, CooperVision India. Also present was Isil Ulug, CooperVision Marketing Manager, Africa and Central Eurasia, and Mohan Hindupur, Trustee of Laxmi Charitable Trust.

CooperVision India Director, Arnab Sarkar said, "In keeping with the mission of correcting people's vision, we are glad that our global One Bright Vision Child Health Program can play a role in India and we are excited to partner with IVI in this initiative. As the first wave of this initiative in 2016, over 34,000 underprivileged children were screened and over 2,900 free spectacles were provided. I am very proud of the efforts and commitment to have direct impact on the children in India."

Mr Daniel said, "since 2012, IVI has been working in several regions of India, organizing vision screenings and providing free spectacles to the needy." "IVI is thankful to CooperVision for its support in the vision screening programs, which have so far included Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Mumbai."

"The Eye See & I Learn campaign through provision of a pair of spectacles to underprivileged children is a transformational campaign that will in the long term provide millions of skilled people for India. Good vision leads to good education and good skills," he noted.

As part of the campaign in Mumbai so far, 1185 children from poor and underprivileged backgrounds have been screened. These children are drawn from the National Urdu School. The 71 free spectacles were distributed to those found with refractive errors.

The CooperVision-IVIjoint initiative, launched in September this year, aims to screen over 22,000 children across India, including Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Pune and Delhi and provide free spectacles as needed.