Twenty minutes of surgery. The rest of a life, seen.
Cataract is the leading cause of blindness in Bangladesh, and it is curable. In rural Pabna and Kushtia the operation is not out of reach because it is difficult. It is out of reach because it costs money a family earning a few dollars a day does not have.
$80 restores one person's sight
That is the whole cost of one person's care, not the cost of the operation alone. It covers finding them in their village, screening them at an eye camp, the surgery and the lens, seven days of medicine, dark glasses, food and a bed, the journey to hospital and back, and both follow-up visits.
You will not find a fundraising target on this page. We send money to Bangladesh in batches as it comes in, and our partner begins operating on each batch when it arrives. So there is nothing to promise and nothing to fall short of. Every $80 raised is one more person who gets their sight back.
- Where. Sujanagar Upazila in Pabna district, and Daulatpur Upazila in Kushtia. 125 patients in each.
- When. The programme runs October 2026 to May 2027. Operations begin on each batch of funding as it reaches Bangladesh, subject to the approvals set out below.
- Who operates. Grameen GC Eye Care Hospital, Bogura for the Pabna patients. Ad-Din Eye Care Hospital, Jessore for Kushtia.
- Who delivers. Association for Socio-Economic Advancement of Bangladesh, registered with Bangladesh's NGO Affairs Bureau since 1995 under number 950, valid to 27 June 2030.
Choose how many people
Every amount on this page is a whole number of operations, because that is the only unit that means anything here. Give what you can. Any amount is added to the next batch.
One operation
Funds one person's screening, surgery and lens, medicines, dark glasses, transport and both follow-up visits.
Three operations
Three people who cannot see today are discharged seeing, each with a case record you can ask us about.
Ten operations
A tenth of a full eye camp. Enough to make a camp in one union worth running.
Any amount helps. These are simply the sums that map cleanly onto people. At checkout Givebutter offers to add its card processing cost to your total; the box is ticked by default and you can untick it. We receive your full gift either way.
One patient, six steps
Nobody is operated on and forgotten. This is the pathway every funded patient goes through, and the point at which each of them is recorded.
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Registration
A community eye care officer finds and registers people in their own village. No one has to travel to be considered.
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Screening
An eye camp with an ophthalmologist confirms the diagnosis and measures sight in both eyes.
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Preparation
Pre-operative treatment and the medicines needed to make the eye ready for surgery.
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Surgery
At a partner eye hospital, with an intraocular lens, seven days of medicine, dark glasses, food and a bed.
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First follow-up
One week after the operation, to catch any complication early.
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Second follow-up
Within one month, to confirm the result and close the case record.
Where every Taka goes
Most appeals do not show you this. We are showing it because you should be able to see the whole budget before you give, not after. Our partner's full programme reaches 250 patients and costs BDT 2,332,456, about $19,100 at 122 Taka to the dollar. We are funding as much of it as this appeal raises.
| What it pays for | BDT | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Surgery, lens, medicines, glasses, food and bed | 912,500 | 39.1% |
| Field team who find, register and follow up patients | 296,000 | 12.7% |
| Project management and accounts | 464,000 | 19.9% |
| Eye camps and screening | 150,000 | 6.4% |
| Getting patients and carers to hospital | 145,000 | 6.2% |
| Office, communications and monitoring visits | 185,760 | 8.0% |
| Independent audit and ASEAB overhead | 179,196 | 7.7% |
| Total | 2,332,456 | 100% |
The operation and lens themselves are BDT 3,650 of the BDT 9,330 it costs to bring one patient all the way through. The rest is the work of finding people who do not know their blindness is curable, getting them to a hospital they cannot afford to reach, and going back twice to check the result held.
What we are not going to pretend
- This project is not yet under contract. It needs a signed agreement with ASEAB and project approval from Bangladesh's NGO Affairs Bureau. Neither is finished. If they do not come through, we will write to you and either return your gift or ask your permission to move it.
- Your gift is restricted to this appeal. Money given here is tracked separately and spent only on cataract surgery in Pabna and Kushtia. It is not used for our general running costs.
- One eye per person. This budget funds surgery on one eye. Where both are affected, a second operation means a fresh registration at least two months later, funded only if the programme has room.
- We send money in batches, not one transfer. Each batch pays for a set number of operations. Later batches depend on reports from the ones before, which we read and accept first.
- $80 is a published price, not an exact cost. ASEAB's costed figure is BDT 9,330 per patient, about $76 today. The agreement is written in Taka, so the dollar cost moves. The difference is a reserve, because we will not raise a price after people have given at it.
- We have not done this before. ARF USA has run emergency food relief, not eye care. The surgical experience here belongs to ASEAB and the two hospitals, and our job is to fund it and check it.
- We will publish what the records show. Every patient is recorded at registration, at surgery, and at both follow-ups. We will report those numbers, including any operation that does not go to plan.