Founder - Dr. Lucy Mathen

Lucy Mathen retrained as a doctor after 16 years as a journalist. This life-changing decision was taken whilst interviewing a medic in Afghanistan in 1988.
She became an eye specialist and founded the charity in the year 2000.
In Bihar she met and was inspired by Indian eye surgeon Dr Helen Nirmala Rao (top left) who had chosen to spend her entire working life providing eye care for the poor at a Christian mission hospital.

“The best lesson I ever learned in journalism I learned on my first day. My news editor thrust a Press Release at me and told me - treat every word as a lie …until you have checked out the facts by speaking to the people most affected by this information. Similarly, when I started the charity I was sceptical about the publicity and mission statements coming out of all the established sight NGOs working in India whose representatives seem to spend most of their time around conference tables. Luckily we were handed a very hands-on role from the start and working alongside people like Dr Helen thrust us right into the heart of rural Bihar. And that’s where we still give ourselves reality checks and make our important decisions.’

Dr Lucy Mathen