Myopia or shortsight is a childhood eye condition that has become increasingly prevalent especially past 20 years due to mostly lifestyle factors like less outdoor activities and more near activities in children. We, at the Department of Peadiatric ophthalmology in Sankara nethralaya celebrated Children’s Day and the National Myopia Awareness week from the 14th to 20th of November. The celebration was inaugurated with a small cake cutting ceremony attended by Chairman Sankara Nethralaya Dr. T. S. Surendran and the Director and Deputy Directors of the Peadiatric department Dr. Sumita Agarkar and Dr. Kavitha Kalaivani. The team comprising of Peadiatric ophthalmologists and Peadiatric optometrist who cater to Peadiatric eye care conducted weeklong awareness sessions, activities like slogan writing, painting, meme creating competition etc, designed and installed awareness posters and videos highlighting the importance of sunlight exposure and the adverse effects of gadget usage and conducted Q&A sessions for parents about eye health.
Some of the memes and slogans written by the children are “Myopia myopia go away, don’t come again another day!
Myopia myopia go away, little children want to play!” “Every closed eye is not sleeping, every open eye is not seeing! Check your eyes now”
The Q&A sessions addressed issues of general eye health, dietary implications of eye conditions, stigma associated with spectacle usage, peer pressure for children, myths and beliefs related to spectacle usage, creating awareness about misleading and sometimes dangerous non scientific treatment options etc. Over 40 parents participated and benefitted. We hope that this is not limited to this one week and continues to increase awareness to all those involved in child care.