On May 27th, we started working with Vision for Life and the University of Terrassa’s vision faculty in the ‘We look into your eyes” project in the town of Viladecans.
We started with the first vision exams of boys and girls invited by the Joves, Montserratina, Can Palmer, and Sant Jordi neighbourhood centres, all in Viladecans.
We kicked off the project with a talk to raise awareness of the importance of good vision health, indications and symptoms of vision problems, and advice on prevention of vision problems. Next we explained the circuit of stations we had prepared for them to start the screening.
All the boys and girls passed through the screening circuit, where we did the following:
a) Tested visual acuity b) Used a refractometer if the child wore glasses c) Assessed colour and binocular vision
During the vision screening, we were able to detect boys and girls with vision problems, who were then examined by the opticians in order to determine if the problem was due to a need for optical correction or a pathology.
If they were found to need glasses, we determined the correction required to later provide them with glasses free of charge. We prepared some spectacular display cases with Etnia Barcelona glasses, so that each boy and girl needing frames could choose their favourite, and also collected the vision prescriptions for delivery to Essilor, where the most appropriate lenses were selected according to the parameters of each case at no cost.
The talk, the screening circuit, and the exams were handled by a team of students and lecturers from the optics/optometry faculty of the University of Terrassa, three volunteer opticians from Viladecans from the Sant Jordi, Óptica Ronda and Óptica 2007 optical shops, and volunteers from Etnia Barcelona.
Once prepared, we delivered the glasses to the cooperating opticians to make it convenient for the families to collect them. We examined 56 boys and girls aged 5 to 16 and found 20 cases in which prescription glasses were needed.
We would like to thank cooperating opticians Belén, Verónica and Francesc for their generosity and time; Olga and the City Hall of Viladecans for their commitment to the project; and the educators of the centres for their fantastic work. Thanks to them, we were able to make this project a reality. It was a marvellous experience.