OVERVIEW
The BBH Eye Foundation is a nonprofit, humanitarian foundation that supports comprehensive eye care services at no charge to low resource communities in underdeveloped countries. We work in partnership with local and international organizations that share our values to assure the best possible use of scarce resources and to promote sustainable programs. We believe that good vision and access to eye care are inherent human rights. Our objective is to assure that every child, woman, and man in communities where we work has access to high-quality ophthalmic care, including vision exams, cataract surgery, eyeglasses and appropriate medicines.
FOUNDERS/BOARD MEMBERS
BBH Eye Foundation was created in 2019 by two close friends, each with over four decades of experience in different aspects of eye care service.
Dr. Gary Barth, President of BBH Eye Foundation. Gary has not only established a successful private ophthalmology institute in the U.S. but has devoted years of service as a surgeon and trainer in developing countries, including India, Nepal, Vietnam, and Myanmar. He has served on multiple Boards of Directors of nonprofit organizations providing humanitarian services.
Mr. Jack Blanks, Executive Director of BBH. Jack has worked for international non-profit service organizations for his entire career of over 50 years, including 21 years in programs focusing on prevention of blindness and sight restoration.
OUR IMPACT
Together we share a vision of a world without blindness and unnecessary visual impairment; a world where all people have access to quality eye care services.
To achieve this goal our focus is on strengthening the capability of local partner organizations, eye hospitals, clinics, and communities to deliver the necessary volume and quality of vision services. We do this in a number of ways:
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Through training programs and infrastructure development (clinics and training facilities, equipment, supplies, fellowships and on-going medical education) we seek to build locally sustainable programs that will thrive independently.
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By collaborating with partners that provide free or low-cost, high-quality cataract surgery to cure blindness. From 2019 through 2024, our program partners in Myanmar, Nepal, and Bangladesh conducted over 200,000 sight-restoring surgeries. These operations require 10 minutes and cost less than $50.
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We fund the provision of eye exams and glasses which enable adults to continue meaningful work, thus helping them support their families. Likewise, eye care and glasses help students succeed in school.
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By introducing community-based primary eye care in rural areas through primary eye care centers (PECCs) where services would not exist without these facilities. Managed by local partner, PECCs provide village-level access to basic eye care services to prevent blindness before it ever happens, and those in need of advanced care can be referred and transported to collaborating eye hospitals. As of June 2024, BBH has funded 18 PECCs in Nepal and one in Bangladesh.
View all BBH Funded Activities and Support by Fiscal Years 2019-2024 >
OUR PARTNERS & WHERE WE WORK
As a small non-profit organization serving low-income communities, our goals would be unachievable without our local and international partners. In close collaboration with the Charity Health Foundation of Nepal (CHFN), we have established 18 primary eye care centers in the far western region of Nepal (our plan is to open 25 centers by 2025). Once established, these centers are operated sustainably by local municipalities and non-profit organizations. BBH has also enabled our Nepal partners to open a new, fully equipped, eye hospital, while continuing to support two other eye hospitals. We also fund outreach programs including provision of vehicles and portable surgical equipment.
In Bangladesh, BBH supports Deep Eye Care Foundation's program to establish a network of vision centers in rural communities. BBH also purchased two 40-seat buses to strengthen outreach and patient transport capacity in addition to funding free cataract surgery for needy patients.
In Myanmar, our partner eye hospitals are located within or affiliated with Buddhist monasteries dedicated to providing free eye care and other vision services. Our support there includes infrastructure development, equipment and supplies, training for ophthalmic technicians and ophthalmology fellowships abroad for promising young physicians.
In 2024, BBH Eye Foundation continues to actively assist all of our non-governmental partners in Nepal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. As a small, agile foundation, we focus on quickly filling critical gaps in funding to enable our local partners to provide comprehensive services including training, infrastructure, outreach and clinical services as described above.
We are also pleased to collaborate with the DAK Foundation of Australia which has enabled over 500,000 cataract surgeries worldwide since 2013, including 247,000 surgeries in Nepal, Myanmar, and Bangladesh in the past five years (2019–2024).
WHY SIGHT & WHY NEPAL, BANGLADESH, AND MYANMAR
The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness and WHO estimate that 1.1 billion people suffer from vision impairment. Nearly 80% of vision impairment can be prevented or cured. Over 100 million suffer from cataract, a condition that can be cured by a 10-minute operation. Uncorrected refractive errors affect 671 million people who simply need glasses! BBH Eye Foundation supports local programs that provide free surgery and free or low-cost glasses, while educating local populations to prevent blindness in the first place.
We enable our partners to provide free cataract surgery by subsidizing operations for less than $50 per eye. A pair of glasses (costing $1 to $8 depending on lens and frame type) brings the world into focus for adults and school children, allowing full, productive lives. What's more, medications to treat infections, glaucoma and other blinding diseases can be provided through primary and secondary eye care outreach programs delivered at the community level.
Restoring sight to one person not only relieves his or her suffering but frees up members of the family who must assist them with everyday necessities. Restoring impaired vision through glasses means that children can go to school and that adults can return to work to live productive lives. All of this means that the whole community will see a brighter future!
Nepal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar have over 260 million people. In most rural areas, over 1% of the general population suffers from blindness. In one of our project areas in Myanmar, the rate of blindness for the 50+ age group is nearly 7%. Lack of government facilities and staff in rural communities, poor roads and transportation, and extreme poverty make access to eye care extremely difficult. The establishment of primary eye care centers offering local eye care and referral to a partner hospital for free cataract surgery is a key objective for BBH Eye Foundation.
BBH Eye Foundation and our partners are committed to providing sight-saving services immediately, while building human and institutional capacity over time, leading to sustainable programs that provide compassionate and professional eye care for all.