Orbis, a non-profit organisation with a focus on mitigating preventable blindness, has taken a step further in its fight against childhood blindness in India, and launched a new Children’s Eye Centre (CEC) at Dr. Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital, Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh.

In 2002, Orbis launched its flagship programme, India Childhood Blindness Initiative (ICBI) aimed at building India’s capacity in paediatric eye care. As part of ICBI, Children’s Eye Centres (CECs) were established across the country to ensure that children receive timely access to quality eye care.

Till date, 33 CECs have been established across 17 states. This is the largest national network of CECs in the world and reaches out to over a million children every year. This CEC at Dr. Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital is the first CEC at a secondary centre and the fourth in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

This initiative will focus on improving the capacity of the secondary hospital and developing service delivery, particularly by creating the Children’s Eye Centre. During the project period, support will be provided for 450 paediatric surgeries and the provision of 10,700 free spectacles and directly reaching out to over 260,000 children.