Fred Hollows
One Man’s Mission: restoring sight to the blind
Related links
Related sites
You may like to
Fred Hollows was an inspiration and a visionary. An eye doctor, a skilled surgeon of international renown and a social justice activist, Fred devoted his career to restoring sight to the blind, particularly in parts of the world where eye care was otherwise not accessible.
Just five months before his death, he established The Fred Hollows Foundation to ensure the amazing work he started could carry on without him.
Almost 20 years later, The Foundation, under the guidance of Fred’s widow, Gabi, is carrying on Fred’s incredible legacy and has restored sight to more than a million people worldwide.
“Fred was committed to improving the health of Indigenous Australians and to reducing the cost of eye health care and treatment in developing countries,” said Founding Director Gabi Hollows. “He was incredibly passionate about his work and that passion has lived on in The Foundation. Our vision continues to be for a world where no one is needlessly blind, and Indigenous Australians enjoy the same health and life expectancy as other Australians.”
A visionary campaign
Specsavers is aiming to raise half a million dollars for The Fred Hollows Foundation under a new partnership that begins in August 2011. The funds will be used to The Foundation’s project work in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region, including life-changing cataract surgery to restore sight to the blind.
Specsavers Managing Director Peter Larsen said Specsavers was delighted to support such an inspirational organisation.
“Fred Hollows championed the right of all people to high quality and affordable eye care and to good health, and this is a sentiment that absolutely underpins our core values at Specsavers,” he said.
“The Foundation’s work in reducing the cost of cataract operations to as little as $25 has enabled over a million blind people to have their sight restored. That’s over one million genuine miracles that have changed the lives of people who were condemned to a life of darkness and then had the lights switched back on.”
Mr Larsen said the partnership offered Specsavers the opportunity to strongly demonstrate its commitment to making high quality eye care affordable to everyone.
“Both Specsavers and The Foundation are all about ensuring that everyone has access to high quality eye care,” Mr Larsen said.
“Through this partnership, we will be able to support projects in various disadvantaged regions – including Central Australia – that allow local resources to maintain and continue delivering benefit to the community."
“Our work in stores is changing lives at home and through our partnerships with The Fred Hollows Foundation, we can now change lives around the world as well.”
