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World Glaucoma Week 2013: Some things old, some things new!
George N. Lambrou
This year saw the sixth observance of the annual Glaucoma Awareness event, now well established as World Glaucoma Week. Again, thousands of volunteers around the world rallied enthusiastically to the cause of preventing avoidable vision loss by the 'sneak thief of sight' (see the video-clip on www.wgweek.net).
Like in previous years, the WGW 'activists' around the world leveraged past experience and invented new initiatives. The annual rallying banner concept was repeated, for the third year in a row. For the first time, the slogan was a rhyming one: "The world is a wonder to see every day, so don't let glaucoma get in the way." As the World Glaucoma Congress is approaching, make sure you enter your proposals for the 2014 banner in the planned contest.
Looking at the activities registered on the website, a pattern emerges: Tested-and-true activities tend to be successfully replicated year after year. So, in order to facilitate the registration process a 'COPY' function has been added to the website - if you've been successful with your screening event in 2011 and 2012, you can simply 'copy-paste' it from last year's archive and just change the dates and venue.
A good example of a revamped oldie was the Media Kit: The previous one, available since 2008 started showing its age, so a new and updated one was made available on the website. But 2013 also saw a number of totally novel initiatives that testify of the 'WGWistas' imagination and enthusiasm. Just check out the 'Blindfold 5-km Fun Run' in Central Park, Kuala Lumpur!
Some things old, then, and some things new. And once again, as in every previous year, one thing remains a constant source of admiration and respect: The commitment of glaucomatologists and patients around the world, across cultural and linguistic barriers to reduce the burden of this disease. Looking to the 2014 WGWeek (March 9-15), let us all start thinking how we can contribute to further raising glaucoma awareness, for the highest benefit of our patients.
On behalf of the WGW committee,
George N. Lambrou