Balwadi Children’s Eye Camp

Eye Checking of a Balwadi Child

At Mumbai Smiles the motto of holistic development is central to every project. The Balwadi Project, with the same goal conducted eye check up camp for all the Balwadi children.

The eye checkup camps were organized across all our 25 Balwadis over the last week. The camps were organized on 22nd, 24th and 26th December in various locations. The main objective behind organizing the camps was to detect refractive error and eye ailments among children. The camp was organized in collaboration with Aditya Jyot foundation. Out of the 780 children across all Balwadis, 535 were screened for various eye problems. One of the members from Aditya Jyot, who has been aligned with this project from a very long time, Ms. Ravina said that “Refractive errors if detected at an early age can be managed more effectively. We mainly try to check for any eye muscle problem. Since the children are very small they cannot report any problem hence we try to identify errors by asking them to follow the ray of light to left, right etc.”

Due to holiday season, the remaining 245 children were not able to take advantage of these camps. Dr. Manish and Dr. Ravina from Aditya Jyot foundation screened the children and have identified some cases for a follow up. Overall, 140 children were detected with eye problems such as infections and refractive errors. These children would be screened again for the specific problem and would be given treatment accordingly.

It was due to the efforts of Balwadi teachers, assistants, Mahendra and Chandrakala (Balwadi field coordinators), Vikas Gaikwad (Balwadi programme Officer) and Supriya Dhumal (Programme officer) that the camps were a success. They all worked as a team and reached out to maximum number of beneficiaries.

The second round of checkup is under progress and will be carried out soon.

Field Coordinator, Mahendra entering the data of the eye check up camp for each child