Sep 15 2008
Fred Hollows, an inspiring man
I have a friend who spends at least an hour each day “clicking” for charity. She says it feeds some children, somewhere. Apparently, if you click on a button some percentage of a cent will be forwarded to something, some group, some organisation (some church?) which feeds children.
Now I don’t know about you, but I like to know if my money would go to feed children or to feed an executive on the board of a charitable organisation. Or, indeed, if it would go towards buying bibles.
Am I cynical? Yes. But then, I donate to a practical cause, the Fred Hollows Foundation.
Fred Hollows was an inspiring man, full of passion and often full of rage. His remarkable efforts and achievements in improving the health of Third World peoples in Africa, Asia and the Australian outback were honoured by awards, but awards can never describe the hope he brought to so many lives.
Today there are more than one million people in the world who can see — because of Fred Hollows.
An ophthalmologist, the head of the Eye Department at a leading Sydney hospital, he was appalled by the fact that there were people in Australia who, for want of a simple procedure, were losing their vision.
Indigenous Eye Health
He was instrumental in setting up the first Aboriginal Health Service and, through his travels to remote indigenous settlements, Fred became aware of some of the serious health issues facing aboriginal people – particularly trachoma and other avoidable eye diseases. The fact that these diseases were easily avoided, often went completely untreated and resulted in blindness enraged Fred. He began his life’s work.
He recruited other surgeons and medical professionals, and from 1976 to 1978, his teams screened 100,000 people, 60% of whom were of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage. Because of this programme, the rate of curable blindness among these communities was halved.
To Eritrea and Beyond
By the 1980s, Fred had extended his campaign for treating avoidable eye disease and was soon traveling all over the world. He set up eye clinics in some of the world’s poorest places where he not only treated people suffering from eye diseases, but also taught local doctors how to treat these diseases so they could continue the work.
He helped to set up the manufacture of intraocular lenses which replace the natural damaged lens of the eye and restore sight to those living with cataract blindness.
Factories in Eritrea and Nepal, named after Fred, now manufacture these lenses. Predictably, opposition to these factories came from large multinational companies who sold these same lenses, for a much greater price, to the Third World.
A True Humanitarian
Fred was an humanitarian in the fullest sense of the term: someone who acknowledged the limits imposed on us by nature but refused to accept the limits we impose on ourselves.
He understood the term “aid” in the only way it makes any sense, as helping people overcome the obstacles that now stop them from standing on their own feet. When he wanted to aid overseas cataract victims, he didn’t organise a one-off charity contribution, he set about helping the Eritreans and the Nepalese and the Vietnamese to produce their own lenses, without concern for the profit rates of Western companies.
Now that’s a real humanitarian, in anyone’s book.
When he died in 1993, he left behind a foundation that continues his work around the world today. The Fred Hollows Foundation in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, is a global network to eradicate avoidable blindness around the world.
How your donation is used
For as little as $25 you can help change the future for people living with blindness in the third world.
Millions of people in developing countries go blind due to lack of access to simple treatment. Millions more stay blind due to lack of access to simple surgery. Often all it takes is a relatively simple 20 minute operation, which can cost as little as $25 in many developing countries.
It’s amazing how much can be achieved with just a small amount of money.
The Fred Hollows Foundation
Fred on squidoo
When I donate my tiny $25, I know where it’s going. I don’t know where those “charity clicks” go.
Like to shout me a cold beer?
