The Foundation’s program addresses an important social problem in Poland: the fact that there are no compulsory eye or teeth examinations for preschool children and beyond. Our research shows that parents lack even elementary knowledge about vision problems, the symptoms and effects, and basic oral hygiene. As a response to these circumstances we propose to implement a national screening program for young children and currently we have devised two such programs:

• vision screening

In Poland, problems concerning children’s vision, e.g. sight impairment or convergence deficiency  add up to a serious social challenge.

Vision screening of school children has shown that approx. 50% of them suffer from binocular vision disorders (e.g. accommodation, convergence, image fusion and stereoscopy deficiencies), often notwithstanding correct vision acuity and lack of any refraction defect.

There are alarming statistics regarding people’s basic knowledge on this subject, and because of this we are developing an early-diagnosis program including therapy programs and treatment for children with vision impairment. We want to raise awareness in society about the seriousness of this issue by providing basic information on action to be taken early on to prevent problems with eyesight.