NGO launches eye donation awareness campaign

AURANGABAD: In an attempt to raise awareness about eye donation which is necessary to help prevention of blindness, a NGO, launched by a couple Kishore and Kanchan Soni, about 16 years back inaugurated the “Eye Donation Awareness Fortnight” at Ellora, near the world heritage site. The “Eye Donation Awareness Fortnight” is being celebrated from August 28 to September 8, 2016.

“Every year, we are seeing a rise in the number of eye donations from all age groups right from children to senior citizens. Awareness activities undertaken by our NGO are bearing fruit. This encourages us to observe the fortnight every year to reach out to even more people. Not only do we create awareness and motivate people to donate their eyes during this time, we also inform them about the preventive measures to avoid common ailments,” said Soni adding that this year we launched the fortnight at Grushneshwar Temple, at Ellora.

“The NGO – Venkatesh Pariwar started eye donation campaign in 2000, also launched a website where people can fill donor registration forms online to give their consent in 2013. So far, over 59,000 people have given their consent to donate eyes,” said Kishore.

“Awareness campaign during the fortnight is being conducted at various places in and around the city. Till date we conducted rallies at around 10 places. Our aim is to increase eye donations in the district to meet the demand-supply gap,” said Kanchan.