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Research tells us that correcting vision with glasses increases productivity by more than 20% and decreases rates of early retirement. That is why eye health in the workplace matters and that is why this is our focus for World Sight Day 2023.
Since 2021, when we launched our Love Your Eyes campaign, we’ve worked alongside our global partners, members and the public to make World Sight Day an annual moment that’s growing year by year. Through our campaigning, we want to encourage more people, including the public, to help us achieve our 2030 in Sight strategic vision. We don’t want to just engage public audiences in the campaign, we want to help them start to take action as a result of it.
We have more impact when we work together and speak as one voice, as we’ve done the past few World Sight Day’s making the decision-makers and media give attention to the urgent need for eye care.
An important part of this is the Global Challenge, which celebrates the incredible work of our members around the world and illustrates the global need for good eye health for all. Each year the challenge has a different focus, reaching different audiences outside of the sector to raise awareness of the importance of affordable, available, accessible eye care for everyone everywhere.
Global Challenge 2021
In 2021, we kicked off the activation with the Everyone Counts Global Challenge. We saw screenings take place in front of pyramids in Egypt, to a remote village near Mount Everest, Bondi Beach, Tower Bridge in London, Brooklyn Bridge and so many more iconic locations across the globe. We wanted the world to take notice and they did – capturing the attention of global media around the world and being covered in 350 publications. This kind of attention is significant, helping underpin our advocacy efforts. We want governments and businesses everywhere to unlock funding and prioritise eye care so that everyone, everywhere can access the care they need.
In 2022, we called on our members to highlight the importance of eye care with those with influence – taking screenings to decision makers, the world over. Almost 20 screenings took place in the weeks leading up to World Sight Day including an event at the UN Headquarters organized by the UN Friends of Vision Group that saw over 300 ambassadors and staffers screened. From Australia, to Uganda, to Capitol Hill in USA our Global Challenge helped bring the issue of eye care to corridors of power around the World.
This year’s World Sight Day theme is Love Your Eyes at Work, raising awareness to employers of the importance of looking after their employees’ eye health and highlighting the crucial role of good eye care in the workplace.
This year’s Global Challenge will help us celebrate that. We’re asking members to conduct sight tests and screenings in diverse and unique workplaces around the world in the lead up to World Sight Day. We know that a lot of our members do this already, so it will be a great opportunity to amplify the work that is already happening.
From prisons to mines, sanitation workers to those on factory floors, we are hoping that hosting screenings for employees around the World will help more businesses prioritise eye care in their own workplaces.
Please share the details of your screening with us so that we can celebrate it across our channels on World Sight Day and shine a light on employees in different industries across the world.
By getting involved in the Global Challenge, we are unified in calling on business leaders to prioritize the eye health of workers everywhere and demanding change. By making eye care central to how businesses operate will ensure workers gain more working years and increase their earning potential, a win-win for all. Participating in the global challenge means together we can show the collective power and strength of IAPB’s membership which stretches from New Zealand to Latin America. From global NGOs to eye hospitals, IAPB’s membership is its strength and together we work to make eye care available, accessible and affordable for all by 2030.
Our staple resource hub of toolkits, social media assets and information packs are available to help ensure you have everything you need.
To find out more about how to get involved, contact Rachael Bourke, IAPB Membership Manager, [email protected].
