German Day of the visually impaired 2021: Contrasting bollards

June 6th is the annual German day of the visually impaited. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 285 million people are visually impaired, 39 million of them are blind. In Germany there are more than a million people with a visual impairment.

This year the focus is on narrow barriers on the sidewalks, called bollards.

Gray and difficult to recognize they represent an obstacle in everyday life, espacially for people with a visaul impairment. In order to make them more contrasting, everyone is invited to equip gray bollards nationwide with white and red bollards caps during the campaign period June 1st to 11th, 2021. Interested parties can finde more information and knitting instructions on the homepage of the Deutscher Blinden- und Sehbehindertenverband e.V. (DBSV). The DBSV initiated the day for the visually impaired for the first time in 1998 and since then chooses a new focus topic every year. Last year, for example, the association published a list of ten tips in which people can find out how they can provide targeted support to people with a visual impairment during the corona pandemic.

The funding program clinic partnerships supports seven projects on the subject of eye health, such as the training program for ophthalmology between Nairobi and Munich or the retina project between Tübingen and Malawi.