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Our aims
- To eradicate cataract blindness from the worst affected and most neglected areas in India by the year 2020.
- To help our partner hospitals establish themselves as eye hospitals able to provide all aspects of eye-care to the highest standards in the heart of rural India.
- We work in difficult and volatile areas neglected by most organisations.
- We are professionals who volunteer our time and skills. The Second Sight team includes over 50 eye specialists and over 30 non-medical volunteers.
- No donated money is used on salaries, admin or office costs.
- We do not impose policies from afar. We are part of the hospital teams we support.
- We believe in on-site ophthalmic training for local people in the rural areas where they are needed.
- We treat every partner hospital as a special unit with its own specific needs.
- Blindness goes hand in hand with poverty. We are actively involved in educational and sports projects linked to our partner hospitals and the communities they serve.
- We spend a great deal of time in the field. In 11 years we have accumulated a detailed knowledge of the areas in which we work most notably rural Bihar and western Orissa.
- We have a finite plan. Established in the year 2000 we will disband in 2020 when reversible blindness has been eradicated in our areas. The dedicated Indian hospitals with whom we work, run and staffed by local people, will then continue to provide all kinds of ophthalmic care for their communities.