Nepal Eye Camps
A fifteen-year partnership restoring sight in southern Nepal
Anita's Story
Anita was fourteen years old, and for all fourteen of those years she had been completely blind. Her family lived in a remote village hours from Hetauda in southern Nepal — too poor to afford a doctor, even if one had been within reach.
When word travelled through her village that free eye testing was being offered nearby, Anita saw a clinician for the first time in her life. The diagnosis was congenital cataracts in both eyes. She and her mother were taken to the Eye Hospital in Hetauda along with other villagers.
The operation took five minutes. The next morning, when the patch came off, Anita saw her parents' faces for the first time. There were not many dry eyes in the room. A few weeks later, surgeons operated on the second eye.
How It Started
In 2010, PDG Kevin Shadbolt brought the project to District Assembly. The first eye camp ran the following year — and fifteen years on, the partnership is still going.
29 camps have now been funded. 3,740 people from remote villages no longer live with avoidable blindness, and a further 27,600 people have had their eyes checked, with many treated for infections and other conditions.
Two camps are held each year. In recent years, a leading Devonport businessman has underwritten the funding — and a group of Tasmanian Rotarians travels to the February camp each year to see the work first-hand.
Clean Water for a Village
The relationship between the Rotary Club of Hetauda and District 9830 has grown well beyond eye camps. A Rotary Foundation Global Grant funded clean water to every house in a nearby village — where, before the project, women had been walking three hours a day to fetch the family's water.
The grant came with conditions: every household had to build a toilet, and everyone had to attend hygiene lessons. The outcome is a village that is healthier, and women and girls with hours of their day handed back.
Schools, Toilets, and Sight
After the 2014 earthquake, four schools were rebuilt with Tasmanian funding. Toilet blocks have been built so that girls can keep attending classes. A school for the blind has been supported. Medical equipment has been delivered, and clean drinking water piped into another school.
The current project is accommodation for disabled children whose existing housing floods badly during the monsoon — distressing for the students and their carers alike. Several clubs across our district have already pitched in.
Want to Help?
If you'd like to contribute to the next eye camp, the disabled-children accommodation project, or any of our overseas work, we'd love to hear from you.
Get in Touch