Rotary Avoidable Blindness Foundation
(www.rotaryeyecare.org)

India is home to over 12 million blind people. Major causes of blindness are Cataract, refraction, Glaucoma, Diabetic Retinopathy, Corneal blindness apart from Age Related Macular Degeneration. Over 80% of the blindness can be prevented by timely treatment. Most of the eye-related problems are not treated in India because of any one or all of the THREE as – Awareness (lack of it), Accessibility and Affordability.

The first Rotary club was established in Calcutta on 1st January 1920, almost 15 years after Rotary International was formed in 1905 as a Service organisation. Today there are over 3,000 spread across India distributed over the length and breadth of the country under 38 Rotary districts. Several Rotary clubs in India have established independent eye hospitals or have been supporting eye hospitals in their community to provide eye-care to the needy over the last three decades.

Rotary Avoidable Blindness Foundation (RABF) was established on 25th September 2020 with the main objective of working with clubs across the country with practicing Ophthalmologists or well established eye hospitals to provide the very much needed eye-care services at a very low or free of cost to the needy.

RABF plans to effectively leverage technology, volunteerism of Rotarians and philanthropic Corporate to provide this service across the country.

Eye Donation

Though all organs of the body are equally significant, eyes can somehow be considered a little more special. It renders us vision and lets us enjoy the aesthetics that the world has to offer. However, due to several kinds of visual impairments, many people lose their vision and the world turns dark to them. We can give them the gift of light by a simple step of eye donation.

Blindness is a major cause of concern around the world today. According to WHO, after cataract and glaucoma, blindness is mostly caused by corneal impairments. Most of these impairments are curable, specially through eye donation, which refers to donating one’s eyes after death. The cornea of the eye can also be donated after death which will render vision to the blind.

Donated eyes are used to restore vision in people suffering from corneal blindness. Cornea is the clear tissue covering the front of the eye. If it is impaired, vision is reduced or lost. In such cases, vision can be restored by a simple surgery called keratoplasty wherein the cornea is replaced. As of today, there is no other solution for corneal blindness than the replacement of cornea.

However, due to lack of awareness, social or religious reserves, etc., eye donation is yet get it’s due importance in our country. Thus, to raise awareness among the masses on eye donation, the National Eye Donation Fortnight is observed from August 25 to September 8 every year.