Our Achievements

Since 2002 The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ has been working in the Pacific region to prevent blindness and promote comprehensive eye health programs. Our aim is to reduce poverty and overcome dependence by providing quality eye health programs which can be provided by local people in their own communities.

In 2006 The Foundation established a regional training centre, The Pacific Eye Institute, using Suva Fiji as its central training base.  This is the first and only regional training centre for Pacific eye health workers, providing high quality courses devised specifically for conditions in developing countries. The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ has devised the courses, established the teaching staff and overseen recruitment of students. The Institute, which will coordinate eye education throughout the Pacific region, will train desperately needed eye doctors and nurses appropriately and will support students with equipment and on-going education when they return to their home countries to restore sight.

In 2005 The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ handed over a comprehensive National Eye Care Program to the government of Vanuatu. Through the leadership of eye surgeon Dr John Szetu, who is now Director of The Pacific Eye Institute, Vanuatu now has its first local eye surgeon supported by 14 eye nurse throughout all provinces and two fully equipped eye care facilities in both the north and south regions. The program is now being managed locally.

In Papua New Guinea, the Pacific's poorest nation where over 50,000 are blind, an eye care program has been established to restore sight in a country that is a ‘failing state'. The program, established in the capital Port Moresby, has been extended to Madang in the northern province and West New Britain, where nurse and doctor training is being undertaken to address a severe shortage, and to provide cataract services to the rural poor. A Fred Hollows Vision Centre has been established for refraction and spectacles dispensing.

In Timor-Leste The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ has developed a strategic eye health plan for the entire country over the next five years, partnering with a local NGO Fo Naraman Timor-Leste (Give Sight Timor Leste) and the Ministry of Health.