Fred Hollows Foundation Awarded the Golden Cup

The Fred Hollows Foundation recently received a very special award from the Vietnamese Government. The award, named the Golden Cup for Community Development in Vietnam, recognises individuals and organisations and honours their contribution to poverty reduction and community development.

It is the fifth time this award has been granted in Vietnam since 2004 and The Foundation was one of 11 international non government organisations (NGOs) to receive it in 2010.

In Vietnam, receiving this award is a pretty big deal. The award was presented to The Foundation’s Vietnam Country Manager Dr Huynh Tan Phuc at a ceremony in the Hanoi Opera House and broadcast live on national television.

The level of respect The Foundation has in Vietnam is something that I think all Australians should be very proud of – particularly those individuals who have supported us over the years.

When Fred went to Vietnam in the early 1990s and introduced modern ophthalmic surgical techniques to local surgeons, he would never have imagined the impact The Foundation is having in that country almost 20 years later.

As one of the leading international NGOs working in Vietnam, The Foundation has provided support to local eye care services, delivering the best possible ophthalmic care with a focus on children and people marginalised by poverty or distance. Put simply, we are bringing services to those who are unable to access them.

That’s why Fred did the work he did – and that’s why The Foundation has continued to work in his name. It’s all about the patients we help and how their lives change as a result of people’s generosity and hard work.

So in acknowledging this award I want to bring things back to a very personal level; because the work The Foundation does helps individuals.

Last year, one of the people we helped was a young eight year old Vietnamese girl called My Linh. My Linh was born with blinding cataracts in both of her eyes. By the time she’d reached the third grade, she was forced to leave school because she could no longer see the blackboard. Children without an education in the poorer parts of Vietnam have almost no hope of climbing out of poverty. In fact, statistics show that up to 60% of all children die within a year of going blind.

My Linh’s situation brought her mother to tears when The Foundation arrived to help her daughter out. But I’m happy to say that we were able to restore My Linh’s sight through a relatively cheap eye operation that took under an hour.

My Linh was one of 195,406 people around the globe who received this kind of operation through The Foundation in 2009. We also screened over 1.7 million people and trained 5,878 eye health workers and surgeons across 18 countries. Not a bad achievement for a little Australian NGO formed around a kitchen table!

Fred always believed that mankind’s greatest attribute was our ability to help one another. There are still many millions of people in the world like My Linh who are blinded by poverty alone. You can help The Fred Hollows Foundation restore sight in many of the countries where we work for as little as $25.      

I encourage all of you to take a look at The Foundation’s work at www.hollows.org.au

Andy Nilsen is Public Affairs Coordinator for The Fred Hollows Foundation: an Australian not-for-profit organisation working toward the elimination of avoidable blindness. He is a journalist by trade and has travelled the world extensively writing about The Foundation’s work. He was previously Media Advisor to now retired member of Australian Parliament, The Hon. Bruce Baird.