A Cure to Support the Whole Family
In 2010, Nepal accomplished something unprecedented by becoming the first developing country to reverse the trend of untreated blindness. While other low-income countries saw an increase in untreated blindness, Nepal managed to stop and even reverse this trend, despite expectations to the contrary.
This accomplishment was largely thanks to the efforts of Dr. Sanduk Ruit and his team from the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology, along with support from external partners like the Fred Hollows Foundation and the Himalayan Cataract Project. Dr. Ruit has been leading an eye health revolution in Nepal for over thirty years, and in 2021, he co-founded the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation with philanthropist Tej Kohli to continue making large-scale interventions to cure blindness in impoverished communities around the world.
Despite the progress made in the last three decades, there are still thousands of people living in extreme poverty and needlessly suffering from blindness in Nepal.
One such person is Sun Maya Praja, a member of the marginalized Chepang community. When a support team visited Sun Maya’s home, they found her crawling on the floor to get to the toilet, and her 12-year-old niece Pratima had to miss school to care for her.
Sun Maya was burdened with household responsibilities that she couldn’t fulfill because of her blindness. Fortunately, the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation was staging a microsurgical camp at the Hetauda Community Eye Hospital, where Sun Maya received surgery performed by Dr. Ruit himself.
The following day, Sun Maya’s patches were removed, and she was overjoyed to regain her sight. A week later, a team from the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation returned to Sun Maya’s village for a follow-up and found that her life had been transformed.
She was walking independently, taking care of poultry, performing household chores, and even visiting her brother’s family nearby for a cup of tea. Best of all, her niece Pratima hadn’t missed a single day of school since Sun Maya’s surgery.
To find out more about the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation and what we do visit: www.tejkohliruit.com.
For more information on Tej Kohli as a philanthropist visit tejkohliruit.com and to read more of his views go to his Medium.
To read about Tej Kohli as an investor visit Kohli Ventures.
Find out more about Tej Kohli: Tej Kohli the technologist investing in human triumph, Tej Kohli the philanthropist trying to cure the developing world of cataracts and Tej Kohli the London tycoon with a generous streak.
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