“Take a selfie and help a child to fight blindness” online campaign launched

“Take a selfie and help a child to fight blindness” online campaign, a new joint initiative of the Orange Foundation and the Armenian Eye Care Project (AECP), has been launched today.

The campaign is implemented on the occasion of the World Sight Day (WSD) 2014 and is aimed at treating sight issues of children and preventing blindness through provision of screenings and distribution of eye glasses to those who need one.

Starting from September 30 till the 9th of October, every selfie sent to Orange Armenia Facebook page and published there will result into a pair of free eye glasses to one child from the Armavir region. The AECP medical groups will perform the eye screenings followed with the preparation of the eye glasses in the quantity of published selfies.

“80% of blindness worldwide is avoidable if the issues are addressed at an early stage. Taking a selfie is easy, fast and free of charge, thus I encourage everyone to participate to this campaign and contribute to the very important goal of prevention of blindness” said Francis Gelibter, the Chairman of Board of the Orange Foundation.

“The WSD celebration is a great opportunity to emphasize the importance of the prevention of blindness, both for children and adults. The World Health Organization is calling on all relevant organizations to join the Global Action Plan targeting to reduce avoidable blindness by 25%, by 2019. So we want to invite everyone to join and become a part of this global initiative by simply doing what people do every day just for fun - “to take a selfie!” said Nune Yeghiazaryan, Country Director of the Armenian Eye Care Project.

 Details of the “Take a selfie and help a child to fight blindness” online campaign are available here.