Who We Are

The Fred Hollows Foundation is inspired by the work of the late Professor Fred Hollows (1929-1993).

Fred was an eye doctor, a skilled surgeon of international renown and a social justice activist who championed the right of all people to high quality and affordable eye care and to good health.

The Foundation was established in Sydney on 3 September 1992, just five months before Fred passed away, with the aim to continue his work.

Fred was committed to improving the health of Indigenous Australians and to reducing the cost of eye health care and treatment in developing countries. He had already started project work in Eritrea, Vietnam and Indigenous Australia.

Since those early days, The Foundation has gone on to work with countries throughout Africa, Asia (South and South East) and Australia focusing on blindness prevention and Australian Indigenous health.

Through reducing the cost of cataract operations to as little as $25, we have helped to restore the sight of more than 1,000,000 people worldwide.

• Pioneered modern techniques of cataract surgery
• Cost of cataract surgery reduced to as little as $25 in some developing countries
• Set up independent and commercially successful Intraocular lens (IOL) laboratories in Nepal and Eritrea which now export to more than 50 countries and have produced over 3 million sight saving lenses
• Price of IOLs reduced from over $100 to just $8
• Local doctors in the countries where we work have restored sight to more than one million people, after receiving training, equipment and support from The Foundation
• In 2007, with the help of our supporters, The Foundation carried out an amazing 143,759 cataract operations and other sight saving interventions. Over 1.2 million people were examined during the course of the year, providing essential eye care to some of the world's poorest regions.

> Download The Foundation Brochure  (1.4mb)