Mrs. Jyoti Dave-Singh and Mrs. Shraddha Patel, trustees of Jyoticare Benevolent Foundation visited Mrs. Kanwar Bedi, President of NWWA (Navy Wives Welfare Association) to organise vision screening programme at Bal Patshala School and Little Angles School, Navy Nagar, Colaba.

These schools are funded and run by NWWA. The children come from an economically backward environment.

Train the Trainers

Between these two schools, basic Vision Screening for 177 children and 6 teachers was done. There were 8 persons detected with visual problems and they were treated at Dr. Hemalini Samanat's clinic. One child required surgery at the cost of Rs. 20,000 which was funded by the Foundation. The Foundation provided them with all the necessary equipment to carry out basic Vision Screening on an annual basis.

Educate the Educators

The headmistress Ms. Anuradha Bakshi and her team of teachers were given a presentation on eye health and nutrition. The teacher's were encouraged to use interactive methods to impart the knowledge that they had acquired to teach the children about eye care and eye health. They were further persuaded to improve the nutritional value of the mid-day meals given to children.

We visited 'Sanjivani' school run by an NGO called VOICE (Voluntary Organisation in Community Enterprise). Rajashree Bansiwar and Victor Bansiwar look after neglected girl children from the ages of 2 to 14. The NGO is located about 100 km from Mumbai.

We conducted basic Vision Screening of 60 children and 15 staff at this orphanage. We also trained the staff to do basic Vision Screening under our "Train the Trainers". The Foundation provided them with all the necessary equipment to carry out basic Vision Screening on an annual basis.

The teachers were educated on eye health and nutrition. Mrs Rajashree Bansiwar, who is a nutritionist, would incorporate the information we have have provided in the children's diet.

The Foundation provided them with all the necessary equipment to carry out basic Vision Screening on an annual basis.

As with all other schools, we provided all the necessary training and equipment to carry on the basic Vision Screening programme anually. This picture illustrates Mrs. Jyoti-Dave Singh training the teachers of this school.

We screened approximately 80 children, who all performed excellently with good results. We were accompanied by two student interns of H. R. College, Avisha Mehta and Manali Parekh, who had been previously trained at Jyoti Dave-Singh’s clinic.

The intern students' presence was well appreciated by the Foundation and the teachers of NWWA Karanja school. Their hardwork was acknowledged.

At our "Educate the Educators" Program there was an attendance of 15 teachers and 30 parents for a presentation on "Eyehealth and Nutrition". There was a good interactive dialogue between the parents, the teachers and Mrs. Dave-Singh on eye-care and the nutritional value of the ingredients that were mentioned in the presentation. The parents were very keen to use this knowledge not only for the children who were attending the school, but also for the rest of the family.

The JCBF collaborated with Harichand Misra Seva Society, run by Mrs. Nandini Maliah in New Delhi. This collaboration has played a key role in expanding our Vision Screening programme, which until now has only been carried out in Maharashtra. We were also introduced to Tapas Chatterjee and colleague Gurpreet of ‘Action in Community and Training (ACT)’, an NGO based in Delhi, which will help us implement the ‘Train the Trainers’ programme to do vision screening at the rural schools in north India.

We signed an MoU with ‘Action in Community and Training’ in Delhi, for vision screening programme at the child labour schools run by ACT. The ‘Train the Trainers’ programme was implemented and the Foundation trained 2 trainers. Five teachers of ACT are to be trained as permanent trainers to do vision screening at all the nine schools on regular basis.

Jyoticare Benevolent Foundation met with Tapas Chatterjee and Rubeena Sultan of ACT (Action in Community and Training) for the first ‘Train the Trainers’ session. We were able to provide ‘Basic Vision Screening’ training, as well as provide the necessary equipment.

Jyoti Dave-Singh, Founder of Jyoticare Benevolent Foundation (JCBF) visited 3 schools in Faridabad, Haryana, run by Action in Community and Training (ACT) for child laborers, who are being taught basic literacy. The NCLP (National Child Labour Project) which is supporting ACT to run these schools have requested the Foundation to look after the eye-health of their children. All the children in the six schools run by ACT were screened.

JCBF tied up with eye department of Escorts Hospital in Delhi for the treatment of the children at a minimum cost. All the costs of the treatment were borne by JCBF.