KAMPALA- With the current trends and the recent statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO). There is an increase in number of people across the globe with sight defects.
In Uganda, Lapaire glasses has heeded to address the matter at hand as part of its mandate to give back to the society in commemorating of the World Optometry week 2025 usually in the month of march.
To drive the matter back home, this time around , the focus has been on students and several career and awareness campaigns have been conducted in Jinja and Kampala which suits the theme : “Eyes to the future, Optometry Improving Global Wellness”.
The students who are the future generation had an opportunity to visit the Opthalmic Clinical Training School in Jinja so that they could talk and have career conversations about this line of work with seniors and great consultants in this field.
They were also ushered into Lapaire branches to learn and understand what takes place in regards to eye testing, cleaning and fitting.
During the familiarization engagement, Hillary Balyejusa, Public Relations Manager, Lapaire Uganda said that in Uganda the number of eye care specialist and optometrist is very low with approximately less than 500 in the country to a population of over 47 million people.
“We have reached out to these students and their teachers especially those doing sciences so that they can consider optometry and eye care as one of the career to take . We are giving them practical and hands-on experience so that they can appreciate the field and get to known about it for proper decision making in this line of work.”
He also stressed that according to the recent figures Uganda has about 2.5 million people with moderate or severe eye problems and their concern is to work and bridge the gap through empowering the youth.
Mark Muoki, Human Resource Manager, Lapaire Uganda, noted that they chose to deal with the students in order to find sustainable experts and professionals in the field in the next years and also give career guidance and more insights about it.
On the practical bit, Emmanuel Ochieng, Optometrist, at Lapaire guided the the students through with introduction sessions to the over view of the eye , testing, causes of eyes problems , remedies and how to take care of their sight as a previous gift.
He also tested and took them through the various steps they do from the point a client comes through, testing and then also to correction of the defects with the glasses.
They also had a chance to touch and work with machines such as the automated refractometer set, cleaners, and fitting gadgets.
Nelly Naula Faith, a student from St. Kizito Secondary school doing Biology , Chemistry and Mathematics ( BCM) thanked them for choosing their school among the many in the country and promised to focus in that area of study since she hails from a family with some having such eye problems and the visit was an opener for her and fellow colleagues.
Mark Kyeyune, another student was very impressed and motivated to use the machines since they have been studying and hearing about these things but have never had practical interface with them.
Additionally, with the new education curriculum is in synchronization with students having more of the practical experiences, focus on skills and competence which is a bold step in the right direction.
