Exploratory Survey – Oct 2017

This visit built the foundation for subsequent eye camps. I visited the central Chenchu villages along the Srisailam-Dornala road starting in my once-home village of Thummalabailu. In re-connecting with people I once knew, I asked about what access they have to eye care currently. I learned that in the forest areas themselves, there is no eye care. Screening eye camps have occasionally been held, but no one could provide any specifics on who organized them or when. The main system in place in this area was the eye centers of the world-class LVPrasad Eye Institute (LVPEI). These are organized into primary eye centers (eyeglasses, vision screening), secondary eye centers ( Just outside the forest, in Dornala, there is an LVPrasad Primary eye center. In this center, an ophthalmic technician performs refraction and a basic eye exam – anyone who has eye disease that can’t be addressed with glasses is sent to the secondary center. I also met the leadership and medical staff at the LVP secondary eye center in Markapuram. Several villagers came to me with eye problems, and to see the system in action, I took them to the LVP eye centers and watched them taken through the system with efficiency and respect. Later, in Hyderabad, I met LVPEI leadership regarding their rural outreach programs. In the villages, I inquired with my friends and contacts about which NGOs are helping the Chenchus most so that we could focus our efforts in a way that would synergize and not duplicate the excellent work that others were already doing. In short, I found there was still an unmet need for direct outreach into the Chenchu communities, financial, health literacy, and technical barriers to their care, and a distrust by Chenchus given their long history of exploitative relationships with outside forces.