Health and hygiene among the girl child

According to WHO, about 12.8 million children are visually impaired from uncorrected or inadequately corrected refractive errors.

Children in the school age group (5 – 15 years) are especially vulnerable to long-term consequences of eye diseases if not detected and treated early. The social and economic impact of visual impairment developing at this age is an enormous loss of lifetime productivity and increased burden of providing support for the children.

Sightsavers India has established a partnership with Baxter to make an intervention into the eye health situation of girl children in West Bengal, India across a period of 3 years. Since, the project targets school girls in the age group of 5 to 15 years focusing on refractive error, Sightsavers decided to conduct a study to understand level of awareness and explore practices on hygiene, sanitation and health among school going girls in Howrah district of West Bengal, India.