Fact Sheet: Council / ECAM / Visual Impairment: stats

About Council:

• Council is a non-profit organisation that was established in Cape Town in 1929;
• Council is an umbrella organisation encompassing 104 organisations for and of blind people in South Africa across all nine provinces;
• Council slogan: Empowering visually impaired people to do what they dare to dream;
• Council’s vision: to facilitate a network of organisations who collaborate towards securing the full participation and inclusion of blind and partially sighted people in all aspects of a diverse South African society.

Council’s services:

• Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) and Early Childhood Development (ECD) Support;
• Entrepreneurial training and Community Development;
• Computer literacy training, Call centre training and Braille training;
• Braille advocacy and education support;
• Job placement support;
• Sale and installation of and support for assistive devices and technologies;
• Sensitisation and awareness talks;
• Provision of information relevant to eye care and visual impairment;
• Eye care services (refraction, low vision, cataract surgery) especially in under-serviced / rural areas. 

Council’s contact details:

• Tel:        012 452-3811,
• E-mail:         admin@sancb.org.za
• Website:         www.sancb.org.za
• Postal address:    P.O. Box 11149, Hatfield, 0028                   
• Physical address:    514 White Street, Bailey’s Muckleneuk, 0181

Quick summary of ECAM:

Eye Care Awareness Week (ECAW) - a South African initiative - was initially held over the week in October which coincided with International World Sight Day. However, this week, which was held annually, was extended to a month and the campaign is now referred to Eye Care Awareness Month (ECAM).

The ECAM campaign was developed in order to raise awareness about the importance of eye health, specifically the prevention and treatment of avoidable blindness. ECAM adopts the theme used for International World Sight Day each year. The theme for this year’s campaign (2009), in alignment with International World Sight Day is: “Gender and Eye Health”. World Sight Day adopted the theme in order to make equal access to eye care prominent, as, according to the Vision 2020 website:

• Nearly two-thirds of blind people worldwide are women & girls;
• In many places, men have twice the access to eye care as women;
• Equal access to eye care could substantially reduce blindness in poor countries.

The South African National Council for the Blind’s Eye care services division is known as the Bureau for Prevention of Blindness (Bureau). Over and above their year round mobile-eye-clinic tours to all of our provinces, the Bureau also co-ordinates and conducts various eye screenings and cataract blitzes (high volumes of cataract surgeries) for the duration of ECAM to put eye care services in the reach of needy, rural communities.

Important dates for ECAM Campaign:

ECAM: month of October

International World Sight Day: 8 October

International White Cane Safety Day: 15 October

Bureau Blitz dates: Contact Council for schedule

Visual impairment – fast facts:

• In 2001, a total of 2 255 982 persons (5% of South Africa’s total population) reported that they had some kind of disability;
• Of that 5% of disabled people, the prevalence of sight disability is the highest at 32%, followed by physical disability (30%), hearing disability (20%), emotional disability (16%), intellectual disability (12%) and communication disability (7%);
• Women make up 57% of the total number of visually impaired people;
• 23% of visually impaired people fall between the age group of 15 – 36 years;
• Only between 5 – 10% of the total blind population is braille literate;
• 80% of SA’s blind population live in rural areas; 
• It is estimated that 97% of all visually impaired South Africans are unemployed;
• For every one blind person there are four people with low vision;
• Over 45 million people around the world are completely blind;
• 75% blindness is avoidable – either preventable or treatable;
• The top three causes of blindness worldwide are: cataract - accounts for 39.1% of global blindness, uncorrected refractive errors - 18.2% of global blindness and glaucoma - 10.1% of global blindness.

Sources:

• Census 2001: Prevalence of disability in South Africa by Statistics South Africa;
• National Guideline: Prevention of blindness in South Africa by Department of Health, 2002;
• World Health Organisation website: Article by Resnikoff et al: 2004.