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Eye health in children: policy brief

Health, including eye and visual health, is inextricably linked to educational achievement, quality of life, and economic productivity.

Educating children in health in the school setting is as fundamental as building knowledge, and is critical to their ability to learn and therefore fully benefit from education. Health education allows them to acquire the knowledge, attitudes and practices necessary for a healthy life.

Many global programmes and initiatives focus on children and health. It is critical that eye health is part of these global initiatives and that programmes are comprehensive and go beyond vision testing for refractive error, currently the primary focus of school eye health activities. School eye health therefore needs to be fully integrated into both wider school health and eye health programmes.

Want to read more about our work?

Sightsavers and eye health
Two school students in Zambia huddle together at a desk. One is writing, the other is looking at the work.
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Sightsavers at the CIES education conference 2024

We're attending the conference in Miami on 6-14 March to share our expertise, engage with the education community and explore how we can transform inclusive education.

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Johannes Trimmel
Sightsavers blog

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Collaborating with organisations of people with disabilities (OPDs) on our inclusive education projects has earned the Sightsavers-led Inclusive Futures consortium a Zero Project Award in 2024.

Johannes Trimmel, February 2024
Mariana Rudge.
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Mariana Rudge, September 2023