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From craft workers to rickshaw drivers – livelihoods depend on good eyesight.

About the project

Clearer vision and vital eye care are on the way for poor communities in Mumbai, through our project to bring seven new vision centres to the city.

Our partners Sightsavers International will work in the slums of Mumbai to create awareness of eye health and strengthen eye care services. Our project will focus on refractive error, low vision and primary eye care services for the poorest in the community.

Estimates say up to 20% of all blindness in Mumbai is due to refractive error and presbyopia – or inability to see objects close-up.

Thousands need help – from the women craft-workers doing needlework or jewellery-making who need good close eyesight, to the men driving taxis or rickshaws. Their livelihoods depend on having good eyesight. But for many, illiteracy or poverty means they miss out on sight screening or spectacles through existing services.

More than half the world’s population is now urban. Providing public health services in fast-growing, underprivileged urban areas is a serious problem. Blindness is one of the most severe – but preventable and treatable – issues faced by the poorest people here.

This project is part of Seeing is Believing’s latest commitment to invest a further US $20m in developing comprehensive, sustainable eye care for 20 million people in the underprivileged areas of 20 cities across the world.

We want to develop long-term capacity for the future which integrates with wider health systems, and can become financially stable beyond the life of our projects.

The Mumbai Urban Community Eye Care (CEC) campaign aims to plug the gap between existing eye care services and the growing problem of refractive error.

By the end of this project we will have:

• Established 7 vision centres in targeted urban areas to provide Primary Eye Care (PEC) and refractive error services;
• Screened 150,000 adults for refractive error;
• Dispensed 60,000 spectacles and 2,500 optical devices;
• Established accessible and affordable eye care and spectacle provision for key workers living in poor urban communities and slums;
• Screened 1,000,000 students at schools, colleges and camps over five years
• Developed referral service to 3 key partners and other service providers.

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