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Building on the Success of World Glaucoma Day to Establish the World Glaucoma Week
On behalf of the WGD committee,
George N. Lambrou, World
Glaucoma Day Project Leader
The third annual observance of the World Glaucoma Day - celebrated on March 12, 2010 - confirmed the enthusiastic rallying of thousands of volunteers around the world to the cause of awareness and prevention of suffering from avoidable vision loss by the "sneak thief of sight". Again, hundreds of events were organized worldwide, and again, dedicated individuals from around the world keep sending us information on the events they organized, and submitting materials for sharing through the website.
This year saw the introduction of the "World Glaucoma Week" concept. The reason for this addition to the glaucoma awareness armamentarium, was the critical scrutiny of the first two years WGD experience. Digging into "lessons-learned", we realized that in spite of the global rallying behind the initiative, a cultural diversity emerged: whereas in many instances the concept of a fixed date, recurring year after year seemed optimal, some countries voiced the concern that observing the Glaucoma Day on a weekend might hinder its success. This is due to happen on Saturday March 12, 2011. To accommodate everybody's needs and to ensure that the first "WGWeek" implementation will not occur in the first "weekend WGDay year", we launched this concept already in 2010. In creating the "Week", the intention was neither to antagonize, nor to replace the "Day". On the contrary, the Week added the required flexibility for event organizers to plan their activities on the day that fits best any local habits or constraints, while not seen as departing from the global Day. At the same time, we kept the advantage of an annual recurrence of the Day on March 12, as a focal point of undiluted attention for activities like public proclamations or media coverage, as is customary for several other diseases.
With the success of both concepts behind us, we feel confident that the global effort will remain as high next year as it was during the first three observances. We are gearing up, therefore to next year's World Glaucoma Week (March 6-12, 2011), articulated around the World Glaucoma Day, on March 12, 2011. Pick whichever day fits best your local habits, and start thinking how you can contribute to further raising glaucoma awareness, for the highest benefit of our patients.
