A journey to make every eye see

Trustee's Message

As a global citizen I’ve witnessed how in the name of Capitalism, we have allowed the poor to remain poor and those who run organizations to help the poor have been worst hit. And in this process of self enrichment, the gap between the rich and poor continues to widen.
While Capitalism celebrates profits only to enrich shareholders, Caring Capitalism is pursuit of profit to enrich society as a whole. The word ‘Caring’ automatically encompasses responsibility. Just as we care for our children, family and become responsible towards them, there is a need for businesses to care for the social and environmental bottom lines, besides meeting their financial objectives.
In Caring Capitalism, we are employing all the strengths of Capitalism, but fruits of it are shared with the have nots. Here, It’s all about us. To enshrine this golden maxim, is why we have renamed the system as ‘Caring Capitalism’ - by which entrepreneurs, the Government and the professionals join hands for the common good and benefit society as a whole. Adopting Caring Capitalism also makes wise business sense. A healthy, happy and secured community assures you of a better tomorrow.
We chose to practice ‘Caring Capitalism’ in India in the area of ‘eye care’, by providing quality eye surgeries for cataract to the poor and needy totally free of cost. Thus Mission for Vision was born. By operating on the eye we could provide easy and quick remedy with immediate dramatic effect. Commencing with a limited 1,000 surgeries per annum way back in 1990, today MFV has blossomed into a partnership with 12 hospitals across 8 states in India, providing free surgeries to 163,000 persons per annum. This journey over 19 years has been extremely fulfilling - over the last 19 years, more than 1 million people have received the gift of vision.
We are targeting to provide half a million free surgeries per annum by 2020.
Two major partners joined hands with us in this mission 20 years ago. Sankara Nethralaya, the best eye institute in Asia, and Sankara Eyecare Institutions, the best community health care institution in India. Funding has come from spontaneous support of a few well meaning successful businessmen, who have whole heartedly joined in this Mission for Vision to eradicate avoidable blindness in India. We have developed a model by which these hospitals reserve 20% capacity for paying patients, - those who can afford it – which helps subsidise, sustain and pay for the balance 80% free surgeries.
In 2011-12, MFV is planning to facilitate 183,000 free eye surgeries in 14 partner hospitals across the country. We are now focused towards North and North East, two regions that does not have good eye care facilities. The 15th partner hospital is under construction Ludhiana, Punjab and will be functional from April 2012. We also aim of becoming the largest eye care partnership in the world. This is our Vision 2020 - to partner with 25 eye hospitals in 20 States of India which will have a capacity to perform 500,000 free eye surgeries annually. The goal is to establish a hospital in partnership in every State of India to provide accessibility and affordability towards quality eye care.
I urge you to join in our mission to establish these ‘centres of excellence’ in all 36 states of India will be completed in the next 10 years. What once I thought was a dream is now fast becoming a reality.
In the next five years, the Mission for Vision will be the largest partnership of its kind in the world for eye care, providing 97 per cent results and best post-operative care.
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