Glimpses 2009-2010.pdf - LV Prasad Eye Institute

COMMUNITY EYE HEALTH
Reaching out…beyond an
arm’s length
LV Prasad Eye Institute’s work rests on a broad base of community engagement, and even as
we occupy a space in the global eye care arena, we retain a firm foothold on the grassroots.
The base of the pyramid, where some see a “fortune”, is where we see the greatest need, and
therefore the greatest need for outreach. The community health arm of the Institute, the International
Centre for Advancement of Rural Eye care (ICARE) had a busy year in training, health promotion and
education, capacity building and consultancy, apart from laying the foundations for a follow up to the
landmark Andhra Pradesh Eye Diseases Study (APEDS), done a decade ago. APEDS 2 will be the first
study to provide a systematic understanding of how interventions over time have helped tackle visual
impairment, and give us a measure of the effectiveness of the pyramid model of service delivery.
The sophistication with which we address questions of basic research and the broad evidence base
with which we address clinical problems are matched by the rigor and detailed planning with which we
approach community eye health. This year the ICARE team scoured villages and urban slums in search
of those with eye problems, worked with schoolchildren to bring greater awareness of preventable
and manageable eye conditions, networked with rural development agencies to build partnerships for
greater impact, trained potential community eye health leaders and managers, worked with existing
hospitals and health organizations to revitalize their eye care services, and continued the project of
creating permanent eye care infrastructure at the primary and secondary levels.
The scope of ICARE’s work is global, but its strength is the team’s ability to get a strong sense of the
local in every engagement, as the stories in this year’s review show.
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