Matching Grant #55775
Cataract Surgeries
near Dharmavaram, India - District 3160

This matching grant project will fund 700 eye surgeries where cataracts will be removed and intra-ocular lenses will be placed, giving "Rotary's Gift of Sight" to 700 poor people in the south central region of India.

In addition to the Rotary Club of Dharmavaram, other funding partners are the Rotary Club of Bourne-Sandwich, Massachusetts, and Rotary Districts 6060, 6710, 7950 along with the Avoidable Blindness Donor Advised Fund.

The project partner is the Rotary Club of Dharmavaram in District 3160 and the international partner is the Rotary Club of Louisiana, MO, D6060.

Below are a few pictures from December 2005, as the project began and the first of our 1,000 patients were helped.

  Excellent article featuring this Matching Grant project was published in January 2006 issue of the "Rotary News", the regional Rotary magazine for India.

 Dharmavaram does not have adequate eye surgery facilities locally, so eye care professionals from the Bangalore West Lions Hospital travel to Dharmavaram, where the Rotarians organize screening camps every few weeks. Approximately 50 patients are selected at each camp, who are then transported by bus to the Bangalore Hospital for cataract surgery.

 Patients have drops put in their eyes to aid in the screening process.

 Lion's ophthalmology staff screening patient.

 Photo from 10th screening camp. Approximately 500 patients have
been selected for cataract surgery at these screening camps.