Prince Khaled al-Faisal

The Ministry of Education recently launched a national campaign to discover the visual problems of kindergarten and elementary students. The campaign was launched with the cooperation of the National Commission for Children and the Ebsar Foundation for the visually impaired.

The four-day campaign under the aegis of Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, minister of education and chairman of the national committee, was launched with the aim of identifying the visual problems of children and provide solutions.

Mohammad Towfik Bellow, secretary-general and the driving force of the foundation, said that the campaign will rehabilitate 50 public health and anti-disability management programs to help fight sight and hearing impairments.

The first phase of the campaign will target kindergarten and primary school students to identify visual and hearing defects through the use of the “I Spy” program for early detection.

The campaign is part of the first Red Sea symposium of ophthalmology (RSSO) which will take place next week in Jeddah.

The symposium will be organized by the Saudi Ophthalmological Society with the participation of more than 300 ophthalmologists and eye specialists from various countries around the world to discuss the latest developments in the field of ophthalmology.

Bellow explained that the initial step of the campaign was to identify visual problems for which they set up workshops in the kindergarten and primary sections of 10 schools in Jeddah including five for boys and five for girls with a total number of 8,000 students in the age range of 5-11 years.

Ten groups of five experts each were prepared to examine the students and prepare reports, he said, adding that Ebsar allocated computers to the groups equipped with the “I Spy” program to conduct eye tests on the children for early detection of any visual problem.

The campaign will help to detect diseases such as strabismus, cataract, glaucoma, cultivation lenses, retinal diseases and others.

Bellow said that following the eye tests, the experts will collect the data, examine it and prescribe treatment where needed.

“The second phase of the campaign will follow on the same model covering all schools in Jeddah with the cooperation of the National Commission for Children and Ministry of Education,” he said, adding that the campaign will be expanded to all parts of the Kingdom in three stages.

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