WHO IS FRED? The late Professor Fred Hollows was a renowned Australian eye surgeon who got things done. He believed that no matter where someone lived or how rich or poor they were they deserved the same access to eye care. Fred always pushed for change and challenged the established way of doing things. As a committed justice warrior, he put in motion a legacy to end avoidable blindness. In his time as a humanitarian and eye surgeon, Fred helped restore eyesight to thousands of people around the world.
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? Poor vision is considered the world’s largest unaddressed health issue — and it affects more than a third of us. Globally 36 million people are blind and about 1.3 billion live with some form of vision impairment. Almost 90 per cent of those people live in low and middle income countries. Yet 4 out of 5 people who are blind don’t need to be. Without urgent action the number of people who are blind will triple to more than 115 million over the next 30 years.
KEY BARRIERS: Lack of awareness about eye health and services Limited and inefficient eye care models Insufficient and under-utilized eye care infrastructure High cost and low quality outcomes
THE COST: Avoidable blindness and vision impairment have a significant impact on both social and economic status. Vision impairment costs the world $3 trillion every year and is the second highest risk factor for learning difficulties which impact a person’s chance to get a good education, find a job and build a better future. 55% of the world’s blind are women, making this squarely a gender equity issue. Most eye health treatments are highly cost-effective. For every $1 invested in eye health there is a $4 return to the community and the economy.
THE SOLUTION The Fred Hollows Foundation has a very clear goal: putting an end to avoidable blindness. Globally 4 out of 5 people with blindness or vision impairment can be helped. There are effective interventions available to prevent and treat eye diseases. The Fred Hollows Foundation, one of the world’s largest and most innovative eye health development organizations, is tackling the issue of avoidable blindness with a number of large scale, transformative interventions designed to restore sight to millions. More than 25 years ago we set up the first high-quality, low-cost intraocular lens (IOL) factories in Eritrea and Nepal that lowered the cost of the lenses from more than $150 to about $5, disrupting the IOL market and making cataract surgery accessible to some of the poorest and most marginalized people in the world. We led the way on establishing the Cameroon Cataract Bond, a new way of funding eye healthcare. The Foundation is a lead investor in a social enterprise that builds cataract surgical centers. We conducted the largest trachoma elimination project in the world in 2017 in Ethiopia, supporting 1 in 5 surgeries and 1 in 5 doses of antibiotics globally.
CHINA
44,876 PEOPLE SCREENED
60,987
19,348
CATARACT OPERATIONS
CATARACT OPERATIONS
PALESTINE
NEPAL
AFGHANISTAN
BANGLADESH
LAO PDR
114,198 24M+
53,298 PEOPLE SCREENED
PEOPLE SCREENED
CAMEROON
PEOPLE TREATED WITH ANTIBIOTICS FOR TRACHOMA
VIETNAM ERITREA
ETHIOPIA
MYANMAR
3,098 52,478
62,389
RWANDA
PAKISTAN
CATARACT OPERATIONS
COMMUNITY HEALTH WORKERS TRAINED
EYE OPERATIONS AND TREATMENTS
PEOPLE SCREENED
382
6,633
INDONESIA CAMBODIA
PEOPLE TRAINED
BURUNDI
KENYA
115 CATARACT OPERATIONS
The Fred Hollows Foundation now works in more than 25 countries, training and empowering local eye doctors, nurses and health workers to create a sustainable system of eye care. We have restored sight to more than 2.5 million people and in countries like Pakistan we have led the way in halving the rate of avoidable blindness since our inception in 1992. Every time we restore someone’s sight, it can break the cycle of poverty through reestablished independence, ability to work, and opportunity to get an eduction.
WHERE WE WORK The Fred Hollows Foundation works in more than 25 countries around the world. Historically, The Foundation’s work has extended in an arc around Australia from the Pacific, to South East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and East and Southern Africa. This arc contains developing countries with the
1.1M+
PEOPLE EDUCATED IN EYE HEALTH
11 SURGEONS TRAINED
largest numbers of blind people and many of the highest prevalence rates avoidable blindness.
HOW WE WORK We work around the world so that no one is left behind. Our priority is to work with communities to improve their own eye health. We do this through life-changing surgeries and treatments, training doctors and health workers, generating new ideas, and pushing for change at all levels – from local to global. We prioritize equity in our programming to ensure no one is left behind, working where there is the greatest need and the least access to eye health care both within and between countries. The Foundation is committed to international development principles and favors long-term sustainability of health systems and eye health services.
424,427
EYE OPERATIONS & TREATMENTS
55,436 EYE OPERATIONS & TREATMENTS
1,870
25,934
PEOPLE TRAINED
EYE OPERATIONS & TREATMENTS
2,208
DIABETIC RETINOPATHY PROCEDURES
THE PHILIPPINES
THE PACIFIC
AUSTRALIA
14,633 PEOPLE SCREENED IN UNDERSERVICED COMMUNITIES
16,140
PEOPLE SCREENED IN UNDERSERVICED COMMUNITIES
GIVING HAWITI A BETTER FUTURE Hawiti Tufa is a 60-year-old grandmother of four. She’s had severe eye pain for more than a year, as repeated trachoma infections have scarred her eyelids turning them inwards until the lashes scratch on her cornea. Hawiti knows a lot of people who have had surgery for trachoma. In Ethiopia 69 million people live in areas where trachoma is endemic. Trachoma is the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness and once someone is blind their sight can’t be restored. Women make up 70 per cent of those with trachoma and they’re four times more likely to need surgery than men.
“I’m an Optimist, always, that the world can be a better place.” – Fred Hollows
Hawiti has walked for more than three hours to make the 21km journey from her modest mud hut home to the health center. “I was worried after the surgery when they put the patch on my eye but when they took it off I was very happy,” Hawiti said. “I bless you for giving me better sight.” Hawiti says she has been unable to help her family for the past year because of the terrible pain in her eyes. “I usually cook for my children and family members, but I can’t because of the problems with my eyes. As long as I am surviving with my family members I am ready to cook and feed the family.”
WHAT WE STAND FOR We believe in a world where no one is needlessly blind or vision impaired. Fred believed that “Good eye service is the right of everybody, not just the wealthy who can afford it”. This belief is what drives The Foundation’s teams around the world.
KEY AREAS OF WORK The Foundation has four key goals: Effective cataract treatment is accessible to all Eliminate trachoma Effective refractive error prevention and treatment is accessible to all Diabetic retinopathy and other eye conditions are affordably managed We also know that blindness and vision impairment disproportionately affect women, so we focus on delivering evidence-based policy, programming and advocacy to achieve gender equity in eye health.
HOW YOU CAN HELP To get involved, please contact us at 646-374-0445 or usinfo@hollows.org To support our work, visit www.hollows.org/us. The Fred Hollows Foundation (USA) is a registered 501(c)(3) organization (EIN 82-2851329). Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.