NEW YORK—With less than one week until 2022's World Sight Day, Oct. 13, organizations, companies, employees and thousands of eyecare professionals are revving up their efforts to support the global initiative, to help raise funds to underpin programs and awareness building efforts to draw attention to the value of vision and access to quality care and vision correction products to millions of underserved people. Among those, the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) and its member organizations have been amplifying their messaging and advocacy over the past months to shine an international spotlight on the issue.

IAPB is the overarching alliance for the global eye health sector, with almost 200 member organizations in over 100 countries. Many IAPB member organizations have been pledging sight tests to reach a goal of 5 million pledges by the Oct. 13 date. According to IAPB, more than 3.6 million pledges have been committed to date, with additional support encouraged to join the IAPB's #LoveYourEyes campaign on LinkedIn as well as on the group's website. Pledges can be made by companies, practices or individuals here.
 
The IAPB #LoveYourEyes global campaign aims to raise awareness of the socio-economic importance of eye health. The campaign calls upon global institutions and governments to do more to support global eye health and aims to get more members of the public educated about the importance of eye health. 
 
 
 
Over one billion of the most vulnerable people worldwide have poor vision and no access to treatment. With 90 percent of sight loss preventable or treatable, the campaign highlights the positive impact eyecare can have on education, economic productivity and safety.
 
The IAPB is calling on government and industry leaders to focus on three key areas—the provision of more accessible eyecare, making sight tests available to more people, and ensuring that glasses are affordable for those who need them.
 
Alongside vision screenings happening at Parliaments around the world including Capitol Hill, Washington, New Zealand Parliament, Wellington, and the Belize Cabinet, Belmopan, IAPB is joining its members to hold a special vision screening at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.  

IAPB is also hosting the first ever "Love Your Eyes Voices" event. Hosted at the Japan Society in New York, this series of short, inspiring talks followed by a reception will be the first in-person opportunity to celebrate the landmark UN Resolution on Vision for Everyone and its impact on progress toward available, affordable and accessible eyecare globally. People can register for the event on the IAPB website.  

Ahead of World Sight Day, Peter Holland CEO of IAPB said, “I’d like to thank the entire sight sector for once again uniting behind World Sight Day. It is incredible to see people from around the world getting involved."

In addition to the active work and planned World Sight Day 2022 activities of its members, IAPB has issued several resources and toolkits which are being used to illustrate the impact of limited or no access to vision care. During the 75th World Health Assembly in Geneva, IAPB hosted a global launch of the WHO Eye Care in Health Systems Guide for Action, an important set of resources to support countries to include eye health in their national health programs. 
 
Among its many services, IAPB also offers a series of downloadable WorldSightDay and #LoveYourEyes helpful graphics and toolkits on its site here.
 
The agency earlier this year launched its #LoveYourEyes international photo competition, as VMAIL reported. Details about entering, which is still open until the end of the month, are also posted on the IAPB site here.
 
VMAIL will report on several of the activities planned in the U.S. and around the world next week in the days leading up to 2022's World Sight Day.