Alumnus Gourav Kant Shrivastava, raising awareness on pediatric eye care in schools of Madhya Pradesh

It has been estimated that by the year 2020, India will have approximately 2 million blind children. Control of childhood blindness is one of the priorities identified for achieving the goals of Vision 2020 - the program launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the elimination of avoidable blindness.

India is home to 407 million children below the age of 16 years.This accounts for 40% of the Indian population. The needs of visually impaired children are different from adults both in terms of diagnosis and treatment. In spite of avoidable childhood blindness and pediatric eye diseases being a huge risk to our nation’s next generation, not much social awareness is prevalent on the topic.

Gourav Kant Shrivastava an alumnus of  Saraswati Shishu Mandir, Ganj Basoda in Madhya Pradesh, is District Program Manager at Sewa Sadan Eye Hospital, Bhopal. The hospital is supported by international organization named as ‘Sightsavers’. This organization provides financial support to the hospital for free eye care treatment. 

Sewa Sadan Eye Hospital operates mainly in 3 districts of Madhya Pradesh- Bhopal, Vidisha and Raisen. Their target audiences are children from class 1 to class 12 of both government and private schools of the districts. Apart from providing free eye checkup, it is also responsible for spreading eye care awareness among young students. They give training to school teachers in primary eye checkup, with the aim of early detection and treatment of eye related problems among the students.

Along with Sewa Sadan Eye Hospital, Gourav is also associated with governmental program - Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK), which provides full cataract and squint treatment free of cost to children whose age group is between 0-18 years.

Gourav always had an inclination towards social service, which prompted him to take up Masters in Social Work after completing his graduation. Afterwards, he chose child health care, as his field of work.

Before joining Sewa Sadan Eye Hospital, Gourav was involved in ‘Child Diarrhoea’ program for approximately one and a half years. During that time, he was responsible for spreading awareness on dangers of child diarrhoea and its treatment.

According to Gourav, the moral teachings taught to him during his school days,has largely been responsible for his present day career path. He also says that he would like to extend his gratitude towards his school for making him a well grounded person.

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