our humble beginnings
In 1979, a volunteer ophthalmologist from Negros Occidental, Dr. Fortunato Eusebio, went to Gujarat, India with Rotary International to work in surgical eye camps. He was so inspired that he shared the idea with his friends in the Rotary Club of Bacolod North, RI District 3850 of doing volume cataract surgery not eye camp style but in a hospital. He convinced them to start a project called “Sight Savers” with the aim of doing 50-60 cataract surgeries in one year. Each year the club raised funds specifically for this project. The patients were accommodated in school classrooms, which were converted to dormitories during vacation and ferried to the hospital for surgery. This involved the services of many club members, volunteers, and wives of the Rotarians, overseeing the meals and transportation of the patients and their ‘watchers’. There was great camaraderie and celebration but it was not cost-effective and the project was only reaching out to a maximum of 60 patients per year.
Then something great happened. “Old men dream dreams and young men see visions”.
In 1992, Dr. Fortunato Eusebio and Jack Po, with the same mission and vision to reach out to many more cataract patients got together a group of like-minded individuals and formed the Cataract Foundation Philippines, Inc. (cfpi). Jack Po at that time was anxious to expand the prevention of blindness program but the club did not have the appropriate level of resources to respond. He became the president up to the present.
Cataract Foundation has been registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the 18th of February 1992 as a nonstock corporation.
Cataract Foundation has been registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the 18th of February 1992 as a nonstock corporation.