News and notices. Comm Eye Health Vol. 13 No. 33 2000. March 01, 2000

Johnson & Johnson and IRC/ICEH: A New Partnership to Strengthen Community Eye Health Education

Johnson & Johnson and the International Centre for Eye Health (ICEH) in London are forming a new partnership with six key training centres in Africa, Asia and Latin America to strengthen community eye health education. The three-year partnership, which was launched in January 2000 with a cheque of £30,500 from Johnson and Johnson, is part of a major project with the six partner centres to develop resource centres in support of teaching and learning.

Mr Frank Welvaert and Mr Denis Robson,of Johnson & Johnson, emphasised the importance of community eye health training for the success of Vision 2020: The Right to Sight. Dr Bernadetha Shilio, of the Tanzanian centre, spoke for the partner centres in thanking Johnson & Johnson for their support. Johnson and Johnson’s support will enable more than 3,750 educational books, videos and slides to be distributed to eye health students at the six centres. The students, in turn, will take the information they have learnt to implement eye care programmes intheir local community.

The project, which is being co-ordinated by the International Resource Centre (IRC) at ICEH, is being developed in partnership with Fundacion Oftalmologica de Santander(Colombia), Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (Tanzania), L V Prasad Eye Institute (India), the Pakistan Institute of Community Ophthalmology, the South African Bureau for the Prevention of Blindness and the West African Postgraduate Medical College (Nigeria). Christian Blind Mission International and Sight Savers International are supporting the project’s development.

News and notices in Comm Eye Health Vol. 13 No. 33 2000 –