The Confederation is conscious of the fact that very limited and sporadic services are currently available for blind persons, a large majority of whom reside in rural areas. Therefore, we strive to take services to blind persons in the villages at their door-steps through the community-based rehabilitation (CBR) approach. The major features of our programmes in rural areas are :
A : The programme is of a national character, covering places like Satna in Madhya Pradesh, Alwar in Rajasthan; Banda and Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh; Nalgunda in Andhra Pradesh.
B : Our field workers have provided training in basic skills and income-generating activities, such as rural craft, animal husbandry, small shop-management and agricultural work to about 3000 blind persons during the last five years.
C : We also provide interest-free loans to trained persons to take up these activities. A sum of Rs. 5047500 has been made available for the purpose during the last five years, benefiting 843 persons.
D : We also reach out to elderly blind persons, who constitute an overwhelming majority of the blind population in the country and for whom very little has been done so far. Thus, we run what we call 'Golden Age Centres', where elderly blind persons are brought together for half a day, twice a week, through our own transport and are provided necessary recreation and medical care. We also offer monthly pensions to the needy and destitute visually impaired old persons and have distributed an amount of Rs. 5466753 during the last 10 years with the help of Help the Aged International/Helpage India.
E : Prevention of blindness and eye-health activities form an important component of our community outreach services.
We take up :
Vision-screening of children in regular schools in villages and towns.
Prescribe and provide corrective glasses.
Arrange cataract surgeries in cooperation with nearby reputed hospitals.
Run a low vision clinic at the head office in Delhi.
A total of 269508 persons have benefited from eye-screening, 5588 from IOL operations and 16554 have received free eye-glasses under the scheme during last five years.