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Navan Lions Club
Navan Lions Club
Ontario, Canada
VISION PROGRAMS

Preventing Blindness, Saving Sight for Millions of People Around the World


For nearly 100 years, Lions members have worked on projects designed to prevent blindness, restore eyesight and improve eye health and eye care for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Lions volunteer to take part in sight projects that have:
  • Saved the sight of more than 15 million children by providing eye screenings, glasses and other treatments through Sight for Kids.
  • Established or strengthened pediatric eye care centers that have helped more than 120 million children.
  • Helped halt the spread of trachoma in Ethiopia by providing 10 million doses of the sight-saving drug azithromycin annually.
  • Prevented serious vision loss for more than 30 million people worldwide.
  • Improved eye care for 100 million people by training more than 650,000 eye care professionals and building 315 eye hospitals.
  • Distributed more than 147 million treatments for river blindness.
  • Provided nearly 8 million cataract surgeries.
  • Vaccinated 41 million children in Africa against measles – a leading cause of childhood blindness.
  • Since 1990, Lions have raised US$415 million through two SightFirst fundraising campaigns to help provide vision for all. 
Through efforts such as these, Lions have gained world-wide recognition for our work to improve sight and prevent blindness. Our members around the world are also actively involved in:
  • Recycling eyeglasses at 18 centers worldwide.
  • Supporting Lions Eye Banks that provide eye tissue for sight-saving surgeries.  
  • Screening the vision of hundreds of thousands of people every year.
  • Preventing blindness by providing treatment to those at risk of losing their vision. 
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Navan Lions participate in the eyeglass recycling program that sends used glasses around the world to needy children and adults. If you have some glasses to donate, or can set up a collection point, please contact us.



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AT THE LOCAL LEVEL

Navan and other local Lions groups Lions have been working with professional optometrists and the Canadian Council of the Blind to provide vision screening and a mobile eye clinic for local school children in their school at no charge. This can give an early warning of potential problems such as poor vision, colour blindness, depth perception, limited peripheral vision etc. We are proud to have identified many previously unrecognised problems and assisted in enabling needy families to get eye care through the generous support of Lens Crafters.

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RESULTS
Over the period May 2014 to December 2016 our mobile clinic examined 3107 children. 28% of those required optometrist intervention or further assessment and 9% received a prescription for glasses.

In January 2019 our clinic revealed two children that were completely blind in one eye and were previously undetected.

​UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 2019 

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board Eyes to As Vision Care Program is in its first year, and is a partnership of a number of groups and initiatives under the banner of the Education Foundation of Ottawa. This program brings together volunteers from the Lions Club, Canadian Council of the Blind, Ottawa University medical school, and Essilor Vision Foundation to provide free vision screening to every student in high needs schools in the Ottawa Public board, and eye exams and glasses for all students that require them. The eye exams are covered by OHIP, and the glasses are donated by the Essilor Vision Foundation, the charitable arm of Essilor, the world's leading manufacturer of prescription lenses. The goal for this school year is to reach almost 10,000 Ottawa students!

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In 1925, Helen Keller challenged Lions to become "knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness." And we accepted. Today, sight programs remain one of our defining causes.

ASSISTANCE DOGS

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In the early 1980's Lions Clubs across Canada sought to develop a national project to reflect their service to Canadians with visual impairments. The result was Lions Foundation of Canada and its founding program, Canine Vision Canada, which was established in 1985. Since then the Foundation has grown to include additional Dog Guide programs:  Hearing Ear, Special Skills, Seizure Response, Autism Assistance, and newly introduced, Diabetic Alert Dog Guides. 

Lions Foundation of Canada mission is to assist Canadians with a medical or physical disability by providing them Dog Guides at no cost. To do this, the Foundation operates Dog Guides Canada, a preeminent national training school and charity that assists individuals with disabilities through specialized Dog Guide programs. These Dog Guides are provided at no cost to eligible Canadians from coast to coast. The Foundation relies on donations from individuals, service clubs, foundations and corporations and does not receive any government funding. 

Now the largest school of its kind in Canada, Lions Foundation of Canada Dog Guides has two training facilities in Ontario: one in Breslau and another in Oakville, both of which serve Canadians across the country. The Oakville school was featured on the Rick Mercer Report on CBC.

Find out more by clicking HERE or on the individual links above.

DONATE TO DOG GUIDES
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SUMMER CAMPS FOR KIDS

Navan Lions support the camps linked below for kids with various health problems or disabilities.
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Kids with Diabetes
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Kids with Cancer
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Kids  with Renal Failure
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Kids with learning disabilities
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Kids with Hearing Impairment
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