Alleviating Poverty

Many of the causes of blindness in developing countries can be linked to poverty and deprivation.        Adults and children living in poverty are more likely to suffer from malnutrition, poor water quality and inadequate sanitation, which increases their risk of contracting eye diseases.

When eye health problems first emerge many people cannot afford treatment. Others are too incapacitated by poor vision to leave their home or cannot afford to travel to a doctor.

When blindness takes hold, people fall further in to poverty. They are no longer able to work and provide for their family. Simple daily tasks become impossible and they must rely on others to care for them.

A cycle of poverty and disability begins.

Yet most blindness in developing countries can be prevented or treated. With simple intervention, many people can have their sight and livelihoods restored.

Alleviating blindness is an effective way of alleviating poverty in developing countries. Through its blindness prevention programs, The Foundation helps to alleviate poverty by:

• Restoring sight and productivity to individuals;
• Releasing carers, such as children, so they can return to school or work;
• Providing access to eye health care for poor and disadvantaged people, particularly those living in remote and isolated areas;
• Making eye health care affordable for all, by providing free or very low cost surgery to the very poor which is subsidised bythose who can afford to pay;
• Building the capacity of communities to prevent and treat blindness in the long-term and avoid the cycle of poverty and disability.

Over the past 15 years, The Foundation and its partners have helped restore sight to more than one million people.

With their sight restored these people have regained their independence and resumed their productive lives. And for every person who has had their sight restored, another person has been released from caring for them and has been able to return to school or work and secure their own future. 

This has been proven by studies which have found that:

• Cataract surgery has been identified as one of the most cost effective of all public health interventions by the World Bank;
• Investment in avoidable blindness has been demonstrated to yield high levels of economic and social returns (around 20%);
• Studies demonstrate the magnitude of economic and social returns from investments in avoidable blindness.

In a survey carried out by The Foundation on postoperative patients in Cambodia in 2004, it was found that individuals affected by blindness also lost their ability to work and earn income to support the family and contribute to social affairs during their period of blindness. Over 90% of respondents said their life had changed since their sight-restoring surgery with 41.5% said they were able to work and earn more income.

In 2006 alone, we helped build or renovate 13 eye health facilities, provided more than one million dollars worth of equipment to local doctors, clinics and hospitals and trained 3781 eye health workers including 207 surgeons and clinical staff.

The Foundation focuses on long-term blindness prevention and poverty alleviation. Apart from the immediate blindness relief for individuals and their families, these activities all help to generate employment opportunities and economic productivity within poor communities.

Our role is to support local health centres to develop administrative and cost-recovery systems that guarantee the long-term viability and benefits of their service.

We also support the training and development of ophthalmologists within each country to ensure
that professional skills can be developed and maintained at home. And we work with governments to raise the importance of eye health care as a public health issue.

The combined effect of these blindness prevention activities is to boost the self-sufficiency
of local communities. In this way, The Foundation is able to help them forge their own path out of poverty.

In Australia, the standard of living for Indigenous people is a lot lower in comparison to other Australians.

Life expectancy for Indigenous Australians is 17 years less than for all Australians.

Indigenous Australians have fewer opportunities to maintain and improve their health and life situation than non-Indigenous Australians. They do not have the same access to employment, housing, medical services and education, nor are they equally engaged in our social and political systems.

Indigenous Australians have lower incomes, higher rates of chronic disease, are more likely to live in overcrowded housing and are less likely to continue their education.

Indigenous poverty is more visible in remote communities where the average income is only 40% of the average Australian income, yet the cost of living in significantly higher. 

Indigenous people living in remote areas are disadvantaged by their distance from health care, education and employment opportunities.

Our work to alleviate Indigenous poverty in Australia 

Over the past 15 years, The Fred Hollows Foundation has worked in close partnership with Indigenous organisations to address the underlying causes of ill health and poverty in Indigenous communities, located in remote parts of Australia.

Our integrated programs focus on nutrition, literacy, aural health, eye health, women’s and family health, training and development and community engagement.

These programs have made a significant impact in helping to break the cycle of poverty, improving the health and well-being of families and empowering the communities to help themselves.

Make Poverty History

The Fred Hollows Foundation is a signatory to Australia's Make Poverty History campaign, a collective of international development organisations which are calling on the Australian Government to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and do their fair share for the world's poor.

The MDGs are a set of eight goals set by the United Nations to be met by 2015. They are aimed at helping the poorest of the poor in developing countries by eradicating poverty, improving child and maternal health, education, gender equity, the environment, HIV/AIDS and global partnerships.

The Make Poverty History campaign sets out to highlight three key factors for reducing world poverty:

• More and better international aid;
• Fair and just international trade;
• Reduced and cancelled international debt.

The campaign is part of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty campaign, promoted by development and humanitarian organisations throughout the world.

Make Indigenous Poverty History

The MDGs do not make special provisions for Indigenous issues. Neither do they target poverty in developed countries like Australia.

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission (NATSIEC) in Australia has launched the Make Indigenous Poverty History campaign to ensure that Indigenous perspectives are built in to the MDGs.

The campaign sets targets for Indigenous development that complement the eight MDGs. For example:

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• Remove, by 2015, the differences in income between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and non-Indigenous Australians;
• Eliminate by 2015, the number of (Indigenous) people who suffer from hunger and malnourishment.

For further information: 

> Download our Poverty Alleviation Information Sheets.

> Download the Report on the Socio-Economic Impact Survey of Post-Operative Cataract Surgical Patients in Three Provinces of Cambodia  (954kb) or download a poster on the Report  (622kb).