An initiative pioneered by N Prasad, Nimmagadda Foundation has partnered with LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) to eliminate blindness in children in Andhra Pradesh by 2020. This initiative aims at establishing infrastructure to provide timely treatment to all children and provide primary to tertiary treatment, ensuring early intervention to prevent avoidable blindness. The main objective of the initiative is to highlight the importance of children’s eye health.
The Foundation has committed Rs 15 crore financial support for this program which will support all non-paying children’s screening, treatment and surgeries performed at the eye institute in Hyderabad, Vishakapatnam and other 50 odd rural centers in the state.
Andhra Pradesh has around 10,000-50,000 blind children, while 30,000-150,000 have low vision. Development of surgical facilities is in progress with the acquisition of a state-of-art of operating microscope with plans to acquire other necessary equipment during 208-2010.
The Foundation seeks to address the challenge of childhood vision loss at the point where it can be most effectively tackled in the community. The major contributions in non-profit organizations and other like-minded NGOs in areas like healthcare, education, life skills improvement and community development, are indeed commendable.
Some of their proposed plan of activities are early identification of eye problems in children, screening all children enrolled in Anganwadi centers and schools, coordination of all community level activities around the center, awareness education on child eye health, performing surgeries for all children eye conditions.