Hare & Mina

This is formidable country, with malnutrition and lack of services resulting in terrible eye problems. Without the gifts of our generous donors we could not support projects like this.

The children arrived at the clinic with their father, Resham Nepali.

It is hard to believe Hare and Mina had survived until now. Apart from having chest infections and malnutrition, they lived in such treacherous country it was hard to understand how, without sight, they hadn't fallen off one of the steep drops around their village. Their survival to date was a tribute to their parents and some good luck.

In the developing world, the life expectancy of a child who is blind is just one year.

Children's cataract surgery is difficult and often unsuccessful. A child, over seven years who has been blind all their life, often won't respond to surgery because the brain's ability to recognise visual stimuli has never been exercised.

But there was something about these kids... Their family lived in dire poverty. Their father was partially blind. Their older sister used to work to bring income into the family but has now married and left home. The mother had to leave the children, blind as they were, at home with a little food and go out to work not knowing what would happen to them while she was away. She had to. She was the only breadwinner.

The children's future looked grim.

There's no doubt that if Fred Hollows had been around, he'd have seen the plight of these children as a challenge. Dr Ruit, a good friend of Fred Hollows and the man at the head of so many of these Nepal developments, is the same.

So it was decided to give it a go.

It was what Fred would have done. And it was known Dr Ruit would approve.

The kids and their parents were bundled into the back of the car and started the long drive from Nuwakot to Tilganga. Neither of the kids had ever been in a car before and although it was exciting for them, they got hopelessly car sick. You can imagine the fact that they couldn't see made it worse as they bounced for hours over the rough roads.

The surgery was undertaken by Dr Govinda Paudyal, the Paediatric Ophthalmologist, a fine, incredibly skilful surgeon.

To everyone's absolute delight, the operations were successful. Both of the children can now see the faces of their parents for the very first time.

They can go to school instead of staying home alone, feeling around for the food their mother had left for them. Their mother can work without anxiety about her children.

They now have a future.

This is what gifts to The Fred Hollows Foundation achieve. And to do it, we rely on the generosity of our amazing donors.

The cost of each one of these Community Eye Centres is around $12,000. The cost of a 4 wheel drive vehicle to transport the equipment for the make-shift operating theatres at outreach clinics is $70,000 per CEC. And in some areas, the cost of a simple sight-restoring operation can be as little as $25.

The Nepal eye program was one of the earliest initiatives supported by The Fred Hollows Foundation. It was pioneered by Dr Sanduk Ruit, with Fred and Gabi Hollows. Its achievements have been extraordinary. These days the Tilganga Eye Centre comprises a Surgicentre, the Fred Hollows Intraocular Lens Laboratory (which was established to manufacture at low cost the lenses needed for cataract operations) and an Eye Bank for the storage of donated corneas.

It's what we're all about. Restoring sight restores lives.

Now the children can see, their mother can go to work to earn money, and the kids have a whole lifetime of sight ahead of them.

As a result of The Foundation's work in Nepal, nearly 1.5 million people have been screened and more than 74,000 operations performed since 1994.