Please donate today so we can reach children like Alexcis before it’s too late.
With his eyesight deteriorating, Alexcis was already cut off from his friends, but then a speeding motorbike hit him as he was crossing the road. Luckily Alexcis suffered only minor injuries, but his world closed in even more. Leaving home was becoming harder and living in fear was the new normal for Alexcis – until someone like you changed everything.
We’re living in difficult times right now and there are many things that are out of our control. But you can still control what happens to people like Alexcis.
The most common cause of blindness in the Philippines is cataract. It can usually be corrected with a relatively simple surgery. But there are no eye health facilities on many of the 7,641 remote islands of the Philippines.
The Foundation started working in the Philippines five years ago, and prioritised helping the most vulnerable and isolated communities. Many Filipino people can’t afford basic health care let alone being able to access ophthalmologists and optometrists.
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Clementine was just one of those people facing this scenario: she was desperate to help her son, but the village where they live is hours from the nearest hospital. Travelling is really not an option for people in her situation.
Without outreach programs like the ones run by The Fred Hollows Foundation, finding help would have been very difficult. But a community health worker visited the area where Eric lives, and contacted Dr Ciku Mathenge, a leading eye surgeon who has restored sight to thousands of people
Since we started working in the Philippines, people like you have helped us carry on the work Fred started. We’ve trained eye health workers, treated almost 90,000 people living with an eye disease, and screened hundreds of thousands more.
Thanks to amazing people like you, we were able to reach Alexis and restore his sight. An outreach health worker visited the little island where Alexcis lives and screened his eyes, confirming that the cataract was treatable. Randy and Emelyn could hardly believe it when they heard that The Foundation could help restore their son’s sight, thanks to donors like you. The Foundation arranged for surgery and transport to the hospital, and Alexcis and his father made the three-hour journey on a crowded boat. Anxious yet hopeful, Randy held his son protectively as they met the ophthalmologist who would perform the surgery. The next day, Alexcis was quiet when the patches were removed from his eyes, still shy and reserved. But on the trip back home, he looked around, smiling. He named things he could see – the sky, birds, green fields. “I can see everything now Dad! I am so excited to go back to school.” Randy breathed a sigh of relief. His son’s confidence and love for life was back! And it’s all thanks to wonderful donors like you.
Four out of five people who are blind don’t need to be. If Professor Fred Hollows was still alive, he wouldn’t stop until equal health care was available to all.
“Every eye is an eye,” Fred once said. He was a staunch believer that high quality health care was a basic human right. Fred would want to do more in the Philippines, giving the 330,000 people who are blind there a fighting chance to have their sight restored.
With your help, we can restore sight to the needlessly blind. Will you help carry on Fred’s vision of ending avoidable blindness?
“To help someone to see is a tremendous feeling.”
- Fred Hollows
Donate today to restore sight