After a round of intensive
interactions with Eye Banks
and Eye-care professionals,
creat ing more Publ ic
awarenes s about Eye
donation came out as a
significant need. Every one
knew something about Eye
Do n a t i o n . Bu t ma n y
assumptions were made by
individuals preventing them from pledging their
eyes. Even those who had pledged did not recall
when they had pledged.
To understand the issue, initial awareness talks
were given to a group of middle-aged
executives working at the Zonal Office of Indian
bank in Bangalore and also later for staff of ITC
gardenia Hotel, predominantly made up of
young people. While the middle aged and aged
group felt comfortable to come forward to
pledge to donate their eyes, the young crowd
was comfortable when the stress was made on
they taking care of their eyes, be aware about
Eye donation and possibility of they becoming
'Sight Ambassadors to GET EYES'.
With these experiences Nayanajyothi came up
with the program “One Million Pledges-One
Thousand Partners”. The idea was to make
awareness creation as a Mass Movement. In this
context, a MOU was signed with R I District
3190 which has 84 clubs and 3500+ Rotarians
as well with Sankara Eye Hospital which also has
an Eye bank for technical support.
Knowing very well the pivotal role of technology
in day to day life, the best way to promote
awareness about eye donation to the techsavvy,
time starved generation would be to
provide an opportunity for pledging online.
Nayanajyothi hence teamed with NASSCOM
Foundation which has a strong membership of
major Software companies spread all over India.
NASSCOM Foundation has hosted the Online
Pledging facility in their Website and are sharing
those pledges with Nayanajyothi.
As part of this effort, Nayanajyothi is piloting an
initiative with Cognizant Technologies, Chennai.
As part of their CSR Project, Cognizant is
involving all their employees across India to
know about Eye Donation in a systematic
manner as well identifying few committed
volunteers to make them Sight Ambassadors
and Sight Angels to make this a continuous
activity.
To enable the general public to pledge easily,
Mobile Pledging application has been
developed. As most of the Indian public own a
cell phone, it would be easy to make them
pledge from wherever they are.
To derive the best out of all the efforts requires,
a common platform for all the Stake-holders to
collaborate is essential. Nayanajyothi shall
facilitate this network – Network for Enhancing
Eye Donation (NEED). It is also equally
important to have an easily recallable common
telephone number to inform about an
opportunity of Eye Donation. Nayanajyothi has
initiated meetings with Health Secretary, Govt.
of Karnataka seeking his support to allow 108
Emergency Ambulance Service Call centre to
be used for Eye Donation calls also. Response is
being awaited.
While Eye banks are available to harvest
Corneas and graft it to needy people, postoperative
care is important for the beneficiaries
who get Cornea Transplant. Nayanajyothi had
meeting with Karnataka Opthalmic Society to
seek their support from it's memebers to help
such patients.
Karnataka Initiatives
After a round of intensive interactions with Eye Banks and Eye-care professionals, creat ing more Public awarenes s about Eye donation came out as a significant need. Every one knew something about Eye Donation. But many assumptions were made by individuals preventing them from pledging their eyes. Even those who had pledged did not recall when they had pledged.
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