Eye camps: our partnership with Sankara Nethralaya

National Highway 5 (NH5) takes a turn at Janapanchatram to converge into State Highway 51 (SH 51). Travel for 30 minutes and you enter into Sengarai. Tucked away from Chennai, this tiny village (1158 inhabitants) has little interesting information for a tourist or student of any subject or even an onlooker. But for us, this place is very special and shall remain so for a long time, for our learning curve in rural health interventions starts right here. It is not destiny that takes us here, but the findings of the conscientious “Household socio-economic survey” conducted by the Foundation For Rural Recovery And Development (Download Socio Economic survey) across 31 villages around Michelin India’s upcoming plant in SIPCOT’s Thervoy Kandigai Industrial Park, Tamil Nadu. The company initiates eye camps as a first step in the direction of addressing the healthcare requirements of the local communities and developing a long-term assistance plan.


Coming back to Sengarai, on 18 September, 2010, we conducted the first eye camp in association with SankaraNethrayalaya (Sankara Nethralaya link), a member of “Vision 2020: The Right to Sight India”(vision2020 website).The surprising turn out for the camp (over 200 people) was overwhelming, and it reiterated the figures in the ‘socio-economic survey’.

Since then, we have organized nine more eye camps. One each in Mukarambakkam, Palavakkam, KannanKottai, Latchivakkam, Sengarai, Thandalam and Kollanoor and 2 camps in Karadiputhur. Of the total 2291 people visiting these camps, 103 undergone cataract operations. An additional 700 people received spectacles and 51 have been identified for cataract operation.

It is truly inspiring to see people working together for the sake of a common project: the village people, volunteers from the neighborhood, Michelin colleagues and the Hospital team. We would like to express our sincere thanks to the highly esteemed doctors and medical staff who have been taking part in these initiatives. Their feedback is extremely important for us. Just to quote one of them, Mr. V. Sivakumar, Administrator, Jaslok Community Ophthalmic Centre, SankaraNethralaya (Sankara Nethralaya Homepage)said, “Efforts such as these from corporate bodies will go a long way in ensuring that health care services reach out to all sections of society”.