Dubai’s construction industry employs several South Asian workers, most of them uneducated. Through The Nazar (Vision) Initiative Aster Healthcare set out to educate these workers on the importance of eye care by encouraging them to undergo an eye test using a pictorial eye chart.
With an average monthly income of $220 and 12-hour work shifts, the workers neither have the money nor the time to take care of their health. In the long run, their health suffers, especially their eyesight. Aster Healthcare wanted to undertake a CSR initiative that’ll encourage these workers to undergo an eye test. However, the biggest challenge was that most of these workers are uneducated and hence the traditional ‘Snellen Eye Chart’ was of little use. So we created icons of equipment used in the construction industry. Later on, using these icons we designed an eye chart that was technically right and worked as effectively as the traditional ‘Snellen Eye Chart’. Several of these eye charts were then distributed in ‘Do It Yourself’ Eye Test Kits, to workers across Dubai. Since, the workers were familiar with the equipment they could easily identify them.
Those with poor eyesight were sent to Aster Optical where they underwent a thorough eye examination. After which, they received free eyes glasses along with the Eye Chart, the kit also contained a 1 M measuring tape (to measure the right distance of 6 meters) and an Aster ‘Free Eye Check Up’ Token.
