Bayer supports Prevention of Blindness Photo Competition

Bayer supports the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness to launch worldwide photo competition

#EyeCareForAll photo competition launched

Auckland, July, 2015 – Bayer HealthCare and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) have launched an international photography competition with the theme, ‘Eye care for all’ to highlight the impact of eye health in people’s lives.

The online photo competition, which invites amateur and professional photographers from around the world to participate, will draw attention to universal eye health coverage, especially for those who are vulnerable and most in need. With the theme ‘Eye care for all’, Bayer Healthcare and IAPB encourage the sharing of images that highlight current successes related to eye health and also document unmet need. ‘Eye Health’ also includes rehabilitation and assistive services for those with irreversible vision loss.

For World Sight Day the call to action is also “Eye care for all”. World Sight Day, an international day of awareness about avoidable blindness and its prevention, is an important advocacy and communications opportunity for the eye health community. It is a great time to engage with a wider audience – a patient’s family, those who seldom get an eye exam, diabetics – and showcase why eye health needs everybody’s attention. The photo competition will be a key focus during the IAPB’s World Sight Day celebrations this year.

Participation in the competition is now open worldwide via the competition micro-site, http://photocomp.iapb.org. To enter, upload a photo that best exemplifies “eye care for all”, provide a title or caption, your name, profession and contact details. The submissions can be shared on Facebook and Twitter to allow others to like/share them – the more social favour; the more votes (use hashtag #EyeCareForAll). Submissions will be open for public voting on IAPB’s social pages, and the pictures with the most votes will be shortlisted for review by a panel. The competition will be open until 8 October 2015 - World Sight Day. The panel will then choose two winners and five runners-up, who will be announced at the IAPB Council of Members meetings in China on 14 October 2015.

The professional prize will be a fantastic opportunity to visit and photo-document an eye care project. The amateur prize will be a Nikon D3300 camera – a great first step into the world of professional photography. There will also be a special prize for children. Runners-up will be included in a roll call at the Council meetings and all winners will be part of a Photo Exhibition at IAPB’s 10th General Assembly in Durban, South Africa in 2016.

Photo submissions that showcase the theme ‘Eye care for all’ can also be tagged with a number of sub-themes, like ‘children’ or ‘families’ (a full list is available on the micro-site).

“Eye care is an important, but often neglected, component of our health”, notes Joanna Conlon, Director of Development, IAPB. “What can we do to ensure that everyone has access to eye health? How do we celebrate our hard-won successes in service delivery? I think this photo competition is a great way to shine some light on such questions.”

“We are delighted to partner with IAPB and support the world sight day and the photo competition” said Dr Rafiq Hasan, Vice Presdident and Global Head of Ophthalmology, Bayer HealthCare. “This collaboration reinforces our commitment to working with the community to raise awareness and address unmet needs in ophthalmology.” For more information do visit the micro-site: http://photocomp.iapb.org

Global Facts on Vision Impairment
• About 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide: 39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision (severe or moderate visual impairment)
• Preventable causes are as high as 80% of the total global visual impairment burden
• About 90% of the world's visually impaired people live in developing countries.

ENDS

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