Our Objectives

Part of in 2012 operated children out of the donations to the Foundation For reasons that are largely unknown, the incidence of cataracts in children in Bangladesh is relatively high. Of the 52,000 blind children in the country approximately 1/3 are affected by cataracts. Just in the catchment area of the hospital that we support, the Mymensing’s Eye Hospital (120 km in the north of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka), there are about 1,800 children waiting for cataract surgery. This number mainly results from the backlog of operations, caused by the lack of medical care and poverty. Our objective is to significantly reduce the level of childhood blindness caused by cataracts in Bangladesh and to draw step by step white gaps on their map. This is an ambitious, but achievable target bearing in mind that the number of new cases each year in Mymensingh is only around 25 (close to 2%). Therefore, if we can eradicate the backlog the problem becomes much more manageable. The costs for cataract surgery on a child is in the meantime, also due to foreign currency effects, approximately EUR 150. Based on that, we need EUR 500,000 to draw the first white gap on a Bangladesh’s region, meaning that in an area like Mymensingh the incidence of childhood blindness caused by cataract would be marginal. Based upon our current level of funding it would take until 2025 for us to reach this target. From our perspective this is too long. Consequently we are actively looking for additional sponsors to help us achieve our goals in a shorter time frame.