Sankara Eye Foundation (SEF) Beats the Million Dollar Matching Goal

On January 14, 2014, land was procured for the 225-bed community eye hospital in Jodhpur, Rajasthan and SEF set goals to start fundraising for its tenth hospital while still wrapping up the work on its ninth hospital in Kanpur, which was completed and inaugurated in October 2014.

To help achieve the fundraising goal for the Rajasthan Hospital, an anonymous donor stepped forward and threw a challenge to SEF and its supporting community.  The donor offered to match dollar for dollar, up to one million dollars, for the upcoming Rajasthan Hospital but only if the donations came in before December 31, 2014. With around $100K in the bank for the Rajasthan Hospital, SEF fundraising went into full gear around October 2014 to meet this new challenge.  As usual in the last moments, SEF volunteers and the generous Sankara donors rallied and toppled the goal of $1M dollars, just hours before the deadline.

SEF would like to extend its heart-felt gratitude to its donors and supporters across the country, who have come through to make this goal possible.

To date, SEF’s accomplishments include screening around 3.3 million people and performing over 1.2 million surgeries across 339 village blocks, 79 districts, and 10 states. Today, SEF is the largest community eye care provider in the world.  While WHO (World Health Organization) states that the maximum success rate achievable for cataract surgeries is 91.1%, SEF has been able to deliver 98.8% success rate through the rigorous quality processes, governance models and protocols.

SEF not only gifts vision but also gifts lives as in a patient with Steven Johnson syndrome, who until recently had never seen her children or grandchildren. This patient was implanted with synthetic cornea developed at SEF.  Free life-saving procedures are also performed for young patients who suffer from retinoblastoma (eye cancer).

This is only possible with the help and support from the SEF Donor Community comprised of individual donors and organizations such as the Cupertino Rotary Club, RANA, TANA, BATA, AKKA, KKNC, CLiPs etc. SEF appeals for continued support as it takes on new challenges and establishes hospitals in the other states such as Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha and Bihar.

 For further information visit www.giftofvision.org