National Assembly Celebrates World Sight Day

October thirteenth is celebrated as World Sight Day and on Thursday, members of the National Assembly commemorated the day by supporting an initiative by the Belize Council for the Visually Impaired to promote eye health care. B.C.V.I. is the only non-private, non-profit organization in the country that provides eye care in an effort to reduce avoidable blindness and to improve the quality of life for individuals with visual impairments and irreversible blindness. The organization has signed onto the global initiative led by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness to promote eye care health with the support of government officials and members of parliament. As we found out from Executive Director of the B.C.V.I., Carla Ayres-Musa, the eye screening services will also be performed on parliamentarians at the sitting of the House of Representatives on Monday, October seventeenth.

On the Phone: Carla Ayres-Musa, Executive Director, B.C.V.I.

“We screened ministers, senators, parliamentarians, staff at the national assembly and we will be screening the House representatives, so all the members of parliament on Monday during the House meeting. We also did a school screening at Toledo Community College and screened over three hundred children. It is really good to get back out and be able to be in schools because as we know COVID had shut many schools down and stopped a lot of these mass health initiatives that were taking place. So we look forward to continuing the efforts to reduce avoidable blindness.”

The United Nations passed the first ever resolution on eye health in 2021 making eye care one of the key factors in achieving the sustainable development goals. They called on governments globally to pledge an increased focus on the Prevention of Blindness.