What does blindness look like?

At The Fred Hollows Foundation we work with a very clear purpose: Provide affordable, high quality health care to everyone. By focusing on preventable and treatable diseases that cause blindness, we have restored sight to more than 3 million people around the world.  

While our work certainly sounds impressive (and is!), most of us - fortunately - have never experienced the world through the eyes of someone who is blind. 

Blindness is often an abstract concept that those fortunate enough to either have sight or have access to adequate eye health care don’t think much about. In impoverished communities, the condition is often reduced to a global blindness statistic or spoken about clinically. But the true impact is deeply personal, emotional, economic and devastating. 

What is Avoidable Blindness? 

It is a common misconception that blindness is a binary concept: either you can see, or you can see nothing at all — complete and total darkness.

Photo credit: The Fred Hollows Founation

In reality there are degrees and types of blindness. Most people with vision impairment exist somewhere along the spectrum between sight and complete lack of it. The vision impaired may suffer from:

• Sight with blurry edges 

• Lost ability to contrast visually 

• Persistence of shadows 

• Patchy or unclear vision 

• Tunnel vision 

The Foundation’s Sight Simulator 

Many people try to describe blindness. Imagine everything in your field of vision becoming dark or blurry, or foggy. Picture your own home or an iconic landmark you instantly recognise as being hard to see - a puzzle you’re constantly trying to put together in your mind. 

But the reality is that there is no real way to comprehend it other than to experience it. 

That’s why we launched our online Sight Simulator. Using Google Street View, you can explore the cities and streets and experience what it would be like to experience the world with cataracts, glaucoma, or diabetic retinopathy — three leading causes of blindness. 

The simulator offers a visceral experience of how vision loss can affect every aspect of life. But the simulator offers just a taste, of course. 

The Impact of Avoidable Blindness 

What does blindness look like? It looks like a life changed profoundly in every way. It looks like a difficult struggle to break out of deep cycles of poverty with children falling behind at school, parents losing employment and increased social isolation, welfare dependency and personal anxiety. 

There are sobering blindness statistics: For example, globally, avoidable blindness costs the world US$411 billion in lost productivity every year. In Australia alone, the annual economic cost of vision loss exceeds A$16 billion. 

But the people at the centre of these statistics suffer even more. There are devastating emotional and psychological impacts, including increased risks of depression, anxiety, stress, and feelings of worthlessness or loss of purpose. It can lead to withdrawal from society and relationships due to the difficulty in practical navigation or just frustration and embarrassment. 

The tasks of daily life we take for granted, such as reading, recognising faces, interpreting body language, or making eye contact, become hard or sometimes impossible. There is a loss of independence and purpose that has very far reaching and tragic consequences. 

Eighty-five-year-old Thoung, once housebound and dependent on his wife Mai for care, now enjoys a new lease on life after sight-saving surgery.

Photo credit: Michael Amendolia

For some, there are assistive technologies, community support, skills training, and psychological counseling to regain independence and adapt as successfully as possible. The sad reality is that for many around the world suffering from avoidable blindness, in particular, that support and care is lacking.

Avoidable Blindness

Around the world, 1.1 billion people live with vision loss, and 43 million people are blind. 

This certainly sounds like a lot of people. But what is really shocking is that 90% of blindness and vision impairment is preventable or treatable with the right intervention. 

These global blindness statistics mean that the overwhelming majority of people suffering from vision loss are suffering from avoidable blindness.

Restoring Sight and Changing Lives 

Restoring sight amongst the avoidably blind is not just a medical procedure. It is a life-changing event that transforms their welfare emotionally, socially, economically and generationally. 

The human beings given sight once more experience regained hope, restored independence and a better quality of life, community and future. Restoring sight allows people to reconnect with their social groups, experience relief and joy, and rejoin the world they have as much right to as we do. To this end, there is a rekindling of identity and self-respect, infusing hope and empowerment back into the person’s life. 

Eighty-two-year-old Krishna from Nepal undergoes the eye surgery that will change his life.

Photo credit: Michael Amendolia

As one surgeon put it, these successes are "wins" not only medically but for the individual's sense of self and place in the world. 

In fact, the impact extends beyond the individual re-gifted with sight. It positively impacts their families and allows for greater contribution, and consequently ripples effects, to the community as a whole. Caregiving burdens are lightened. Economic productivity increases. School and work are re-attended. 

The Role of the Fred Hollows Foundation 

The Fred Hollows Foundation is a global not-for-profit organisation dedicated to ending avoidable blindness through cataract surgery and similar interventions, thereby improving eye health for everyone, regardless of their economic status or location. Inspired by our founder, Professor Fred Hollows, an eye surgeon and social justice activist, the Foundation has been committed to ensuring that no one is needlessly blind or vision impaired for over 30 years and across 25 plus countries. 

But it is the human stories at the heart of what we do that makes it so meaningful.

The Human Stories behind the Surgeries 

For example, Hawiti, a grandmother from Ethiopia, who endured pain and feared permanent blindness, reported feeling "free when they took the patch off" following surgery provided by the Foundation.

Seven-year-old Nabiritha from rural Kenya was born with bilateral cataract blindness and grew up in poverty and isolation. The simple joys of childhood like playing with friends or going to school were denied to her just because her family couldn’t afford the surgery. A single surgery lasting 20 minutes and costing $25 provided by The Fred Hollows Foundation gave her back her sight, and with it her childhood and future. It wasn’t just her sight that was restored but her smile as well.  

What does a world without preventable blindness look like? 

We are working tirelessly to eliminate avoidable blindness worldwide, including in Australia, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific region. We believe everyone has the right to empower, affordable eye care, and that together we can empower communities with practical, sustainable health solutions, such as cataracts, trachoma, and diabetic retinopathy.  

In addition to direct medical care, we work to strengthen local health systems by training doctors, nurses, and health workers to diagnose and treat eye problems within their communities. Our team supports research and advocates for systemic change to improve access to eye health. 

So if you’re looking for ways to make a tangible difference in the lives of others, donating to the Foundation and thereby helping to restore someone’s sight could help not just the individual in question, but an entire family, a whole community, and even a local economy. 

Why not check out our Sight Simulator today to experience what avoidable blindness looks like and discover just how impactful your contribution can be?