World Sight Day (WSD), co-ordinated by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), is an international day of awareness, held annually on the second Thursday of October to focus attention on the global issue of avoidable blindness and visual impairment. This year World Sight Day falls on 10 October 2019.
WSD became an official IAPB event in the year 2000, and has been marked in many different ways in countries around the world each year since then.
As the focal Advocacy and PR event for IAPB and its members and partners each year, it highlights the fact that more than 75% of all blindness and MSVI is avoidable. WSD provides a platform for organisations to encourage governments, corporations, institutions and individuals to actively support global blindness prevention efforts.
WSD is supported by over 150 IAPB member organisations, which include every major eye care NGO in the world, apex professional bodies for ophthalmology and optometry, teaching hospitals and corporations, united in working together to eliminate avoidable blindness and visual impairment.
This year too, IAPB challenges amateur and professional photographers around the world to join the organisation in highlighting the impact of eye health in people’s lives, by taking part in an international photography competition with the theme, “Vision First”. Visit photocomp.iapb.org
Every year hundreds of activities are planned and executed during the observance. While many are featured on the IAPB website’s Activity Report, this does not indicate the full scale, as organisers of events are requested but not obliged to report to IAPB. While the global WSD theme, and certain core materials are generated by IAPB, events are organised independently by IAPB member and supporter organisations.
