As eyecare professionals, optical industry partners and sight-related organizations around the world gear up the World Sight Day Challenge, participation and the spreading of the messages of the initiative via digital and social media platforms will increase dramatically this year.

Members of the North American eye care community will once again join forces in a Coalition to support Optometry Giving Sight and its annual fundraising campaign, the World Sight Day Challenge held throughout September and October.

This year’s Coalition members include ABB OPTICAL GROUP, Alcon, AllAboutVision.com, CooperVision, Essilor, Eyefinity, FYidoctors, Marchon Eyewear, Vision Source, VSP Global and ZeaVision.

They will be joined by A&A Optical, Advance Optical, Allergan, Art Optical, Bard Optical, ClearVision Optical, Contamac, DAC Vision, Demandforce, Essilor Canada, Europa, Eye Pros, Eye Recommend, Gateway Professional Network, GPLI, Hilco, Jobson Medical Information, Match, Menicon, Modern Optical, Oasis Medical, Optos, OSI, POG Labs, RX Optical, Reptile Sun, Ron’s Optical, Signet Armorlite, Slack Incorporated, SynergEyes, Tura, Wave Contact Lens System, Westgroupe, Zeiss (USA & Canada) and Zyloware, all of whom are participating in the Challenge in some way. More companies, networks and practices are signing up every day.

In addition to mobile vision clinics, local vision screening and testing, fundraising at individual practices and a range of imaginative donation drives and donation-matching commitments to support the cause, participants are encouraging the involvement of patients via digital and social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and others.

Many participating companies, via their own posts and content programs and photos are encouraging practices to share the message to patients.

One such initiative is a new Instagram contest that Essilor is launching as part of its 2015 World Sight Day campaign to bring a renewed focus on vision. It aims to boost visibility of the Group’s call to action and develop a wider public engagement for vision access for all.

From Sept. 24 to Oct. 22, people are invited to share their perspectives on ‘seeing the world better.' By tagging their photos #Essilor, #Essilorwsd2015 or #seeingtheworldbetter, they’ll be sharing images across Instagram and helping spread the message. At the end of the four week contest, two winners will be selected—the photo with the most likes and a photo selected by a special Essilor jury.

To give the contest a truly global reach, Essilor has teamed up with five Instagram influencers who will publish photos every week on the theme of ‘seeing the world better’ and encourage their followers to participate in the contest. See what they’re contributing to the online conversation about vision: From France: Joanna Lemanska @misscoolpics​; From the US: Paola​ Franqui @monaris; ​​​ From Brazil: Marcelo Ruduit @ruduit​​; From India: Chandan Khanna @khannachandan​​; From the Philippines: Jaypee Swing @jaypeeswing​.

You can get involved by subscribing to Essilor on Instagram, liking others’ photos or sharing your own thoughts on ‘seeing the world better’! ECPs can read the contest rules here.

World Sight Day is an annual day of awareness held on the second Thursday of October to focus global attention on blindness and vision impairment. It is coordinated by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) as part of the VISION 2020 Global Initiative. It is supported by eye health organizations around the world—including Optometry Giving Sight—and is included on the official World Health Organization (WHO) calendar. 2015 is the third year of the WHO Global Action Plan which has the rolling theme: Universal Eye Health. This year, the call to action for World Sight Day is: Eye Care for All.

Optometry Giving Sight is the only global fundraising initiative that specifically targets the prevention of blindness and impaired vision due to uncorrected refractive error (URE)—simply the need for an eye examination and glasses. It was established in 2003 by the World Council of Optometry, the Brien Holden Vision Institute and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness as a means of mobilizing support from the global vision care profession and industry to help eliminate the backlog of people who are needlessly blind or vision impaired—currently estimated at more than 600 million worldwide. It is a registered charity in the U.S. and in Canada.