Eric could have been blind forever.
Eric was living with avoidable blindness. Without access to eye care and surgery, he could have remained blind and missed the chance to go to school. Your donation can help restore sight for more children like Eric.
Donate today and help restore sight
When we first met nine-year-old Eric, he was a quiet little boy whose hopes were simple. He wanted to play football with his brother and go to school. But because he was blind, his local school could not teach him. Instead, he spent long days sitting beside his mother, Clementine, while she worked.
Clementine is a farm labourer. With Eric at her side, she could only accept work close to home and struggled to earn enough to feed her two sons.
Children like Eric who live with avoidable blindness can miss out on school, play and enjoying the freedom of childhood. For families experiencing extreme poverty, long distances to a hospital and the cost of travel or treatment can make eye care difficult to access.
When you help restore sight to children like Eric, you help them access education, play, independence, and new opportunities for the future. Restoring sight can change the course of a child’s life.
Clementine was desperate to help her son, but their village was hours from the nearest hospital. There was no way they could afford the trip to the hospital or the eye surgery he urgently needed. Without outreach programs like those run by The Fred Hollows Foundation, finding help would have been very difficult. A community health worker visited the area where Eric lives, spoke with Clementine, and contacted Dr Ciku Mathenge.
Dr Ciku (Wanjiku) Mathenge is the first female ophthalmologist in Africa and was trained by The Fred Hollows Foundation. She has helped transform the lives of countless people by providing specialist eye care and surgery.
Eric had very small eyes and abnormal eye movements. This raised concerns that the connection between his eyes and brain might not have developed. Even with surgery, there was a risk that he might not be able to see.
The surgery was nerve-wracking. But when Eric's patches were removed the next morning, he immediately reached out for Dr Ciku’s hand and smiled at his mother. That was the moment everyone realised he could see.
All Eric hoped for was to play football with his brother and go to school. Now he can. This is the difference you can make.
You can help restore sight to more children like Eric. Will you make a donation today?
Just like Fred, Dr Ciku couldn't stand by while children went blind.
Dr Ciku is someone you would trust to do the most important thing: operate on your child. Eric’s mum trusted her when everyone else told her there was no hope for her son. As the first female ophthalmologist to be trained by The Foundation in Kenya, Dr Ciku has performed eye surgery on the most vulnerable children. She is a testament to Fred Hollows and the support of everyday Australians like you.
We need your help now to reach more people like Eric
Monthly donations are the most effective way to give. You are always in control of your donation and you decide how long you give for and how much. It’s a convenient and secure way many of our committed donors change lives everyday.
Restore sight every month
For just $25 a month you can help provide sight saving surgery to a person every month. That’s up to 12 lives changed by you, every year.
Fund an eye camp
Your $50 a month can help fund a mobile eye camp in the most remote areas. These camps can provide hundreds of surgeries in a day to people who can’t normally access these services.
Train an eye surgeon
Your $100 a month can help train an eye surgeon – one eye surgeon can perform up to 1,000 surgeries a year. We are planning on training 120 surgeons this year but we can’t do it without people like you.
Help train an eye surgeon and keep Fred's promise
Donate NowFrequently asked questions
Yes, you will receive an email receipt immediately after donating and if you make a monthly gift you will receive a yearly tax receipt in the post every year.
Restoring sight changes lives and it can only happen thanks to the generosity of supporters like you.
When you become a monthly donor we will send you:
- A welcome pack in the mail within a few weeks. The welcome pack will contain all the necessary information about your monthly gift.
- Your nominated account or credit card will be debited each month on the 15th or 28th (whichever is closest to your sign up date).
- You will receive regular email updates, sharing stories from the field about patients whose sight you’ve helped restore; medical professionals and programs you have supported; events and activities The Foundation has taken part in; petitions and research relating to eye health.
- At the end of each financial year, we will send a tax receipt with all your donations, for you to use for your income tax claim.
Yes. Donations to The Fred Hollows Foundation are tax deductible in Australia because we are endorsed as a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR). To claim a deduction, you must meet the Australian Taxation Office’s eligibility requirements.
You can update your details on our Donor Update Form. Or, you can get in touch and someone on our Sydney-based Supporter Care Team will be able to help you.
Your donation will be used to restore sight to those who are needlessly blind, and help end avoidable blindness in the countries where we work, which includes eye operations and treatments, training surgeons and eye health workers, and other sustainable eye health.
For every $1 donated, 75% goes directly towards eye health programs, 6% is necessary for admin costs, and 19% goes towards investment in fundraising efforts, which allows us to help even more people in future years.
In recent years, The Foundation reevaluated our program costs for small incision cataract surgery to ensure the $25 cost remained accurate. This evaluation showed that it remains possible to restore sight for as little as $25 in many of our program countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Cambodia.
Our assessment showed IOL costs start from as little as $4 in Pakistan, about $6 in Cambodia, and about $14 in Bangladesh.
The other key costs are the surgeon’s time (which is less than $1.50 per patient in those three countries) and consumable equipment (as little as $5.46).
So with the cost of the IOL, the surgeon and the consumables it is possible that The Foundation can restore sight for as little as $25 in some countries.
We acknowledge that not all surgeries in all countries are as little as $25. The cost of surgery depends on factors including the country of treatment, the age and circumstances of the patient, how and where the treatment is delivered, the type of procedure, the IOL used, the hospital type (government or private), the facilities of the hospital, inpatient or day procedure delivery mechanisms, and the economic status of people in the country or region.
For one-off donations, we accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, or PayPal. For monthly donations, you can use Visa, Mastercard, American Express, or direct debit.
You can change how we contact you at any time. Get in touch, email [email protected], call 1800 352 352 or write to us at Supporter Care Team, The Fred Hollows Foundation, Locked Bag 5021, Alexandria NSW 2015.
Please view our Regular Giving Service Agreement here.
