09 October 2025
The António Champalimaud Vision Award recognised this year three prestigious global institutions for their remarkable, long-standing, and impactful commitment to the prevention and treatment of blindness worldwide, the Champalimaud Foundation announced in September.
On this World Sight Day, we celebrate their extraordinary work and inspiring stories.
Fred Hollows was an extraordinary man, “one of the most interesting people to have come out of the area of ophthalmology for many years, because he was a real disruptor”, said Nicola Watkinson, chair of the Fred Hollows Foundation UK, during an interview she gave us when she was in Lisbon, in September, to receive the 2025 António Champalimaud Vision Award. The Fred Hollows Foundation UK is an affiliated entity of the Fred Hollows Foundation, which this year was one of the three global institutions that shared the Champalimaud Foundation’s one million euro annual Award, the largest award in the fields of Vision and Ophthalmology and one of the largest Science and Humanitarian Awards in the world.
Fred Hollows was an ophthalmologist from New Zealand who lived in Sydney, Australia – which is why the Fred Hollows Foundation was originally founded in Australia. While practicing ophthalmology in Sydney, Hollows became incensed at the health care gap in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations, who, still today, are three times more likely to experience blindness than the rest of the Australian population.
He also noted that there was endemic trachoma in Australia (an infectious eye disease that begins as a bacterial infection and can lead to blindness). Australia is actually the last higher income country in the world to be experiencing trachoma at that level.
“So Hollows went on a mission to bring eye health to people in need, both in Australia and around the world”, adds Watkinson. He traveled widely throughout Australia's outback and in countries like Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Eritrea, and Vietnam, to establish eye treatment programs and advocate for eye health.
He’s done so much work in poor countries that his name pops up in unlikely situations. Watkinson remembers one particular instance: “One day, I jumped into a cab in Chicago and I was talking to the taxi driver, and he heard my accent, which still has a trace of Australia in it. He asked if I was from Australia, and I said I was.”
“And then, just like that”, she continues, “he mentioned Fred Hollows. And when I asked him how he knew about Hollows, he replied: ‘I come from Somalia, and Fred came to our village one day and he did all these eye surgeries and he trained some of our local people, and my school was named after him because he made such a genuine impact on life in our community.’”
“That really made me think about how individuals like Fred can be real game changers in bringing to other parts of the world, where access to health care is so limited, the kind of eye health that we traditionally think of as being exclusive to the West”.
Today, more than a billion people around the world have sight loss because of lack of access to eye care. Of those, more than 90% shouldn’t have to be blind or impaired, as their condition can be resolved without much complexity, namely by giving them access to eyeglasses or cataract surgery. These interventions are among the most straightforward and cost-effective medical interventions there are.
Apart from the health issues it causes, sight loss has an impact on people's ability to work, on children's ability to go to school and to learn, and generally on people's daily lives. Expectably, the economic impact is equally huge: globally, more than 400 billion dollars a year are lost in lost productivity as a result of sight loss, as well as 6.3 million years of childhood learning.
This year’s awardees were The Fred Hollows Foundation (FHF); the Lions Clubs International Foundation (LCIF) and its SightFirst program; and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB).
“Through a joint effort, these three organizations, with different intervention models – from grassroots mobilization to health system transformation and influence on global policies – have created a profound and measurable impact in the fight against preventable blindness”, writes the Champalimaud Foundation (CF) in its official announcement . “The 2025 António Champalimaud Vision Award recognizes and celebrates the continued dedication, complementary strategies, and leadership of these organizations in promoting global eye health, and serving as instruments of hope, equity, and dignity for hundreds of millions of people worldwide.”
About the FHF, the document states: “Over 33 years, the Fred Hollows Foundation has supported more than eight million people, restored sight to over three million, and performed more than 560,000 surgeries”. In addition, it has distributed over 178,000 pairs of glasses and trained more than 66,000 individuals, from local community health workers to teachers and surgeons. It operates in more than 25 countries across Asia, Africa, and Oceania.
Kate Bool, Head of Philanthropy and Partnerships for the UK and Europe at the Fred Hollows Foundation, declared during an interview, also in Lisbon: “If we flew in doctors and nurses to try and treat the backlog of cases, we would never be able to address the issue, and we'd actually leave countries dependent on foreign support. Instead, what we want to do is support countries, governments, regional health structures and local communities, strengthen and deliver their own eye care by training doctors, nurses, community health workers, providing support for data systems, health systems and referral pathways. And making sure that services understand how to reach the most geographically remote populations or the most socially marginalized populations like women, children, ethnic minorities, or those who are experiencing other forms of discrimination.”
“Sadly”, she added, “Professor Fred Hollows died in the 1990’s and since then, we've been working to continue his legacy and our aim is to ensure that no one needs to live with preventable blindness or visual impairment.”
Concerning the LCIF, the CF’s official statement reads: “The Lions Club International Foundation, through its SightFirst program, launched in 1990, has enabled more than 544 million people worldwide to access eye care.” With the direct involvement of Lions members, health professionals, and community partners, the program has also trained over 2.6 million eye health professionals and supported the construction and equipping of more than 1,700 eye care centers. SightFirst operates in 118 countries and has facilitated more than nine million cataract surgeries, prevented severe vision loss in 30 million people, and improved eye care services for hundreds of millions around the world. In 2024 alone, the program supported more than 10,500 cataract surgeries and eye examinations for nearly 54,000 people in Pakistan alone.
Fabrício Oliveira, currently the chairperson of the Board of Trustees of LCIF explained during an interview that “Lions is a volunteer organisation that was founded in 1917 by a great visionary, Melvin Jones, who was an insurance broker. Jones always believed that it was time for people to do something to help their fellow human beings.”
The idea was born, with the help of Helen Keller herself, among members of a Chicago business circle, and the first club was founded. Today, Lions has approximately 1.4 million members worldwide, in 50,000 clubs and is present in 210 countries and geographical regions. “We have built and equipped around 1,800 clinics around the world, and performed 9.8 million cataract surgeries”, adds Oliveira. “For 100 years, our organisation has been providing services to millions and millions of people every year.”
As to the IAPB, says the official announcement, “the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness brings together over 250 member organizations in more than 100 countries, including governments, academic institutions, and health professionals. It stands out for its strategic work in advocacy, policy development, and partnership promotion”, playing a key role in shaping the global agenda and driving systemic improvements in eye care. Its membership has grown 66% over the past 10 years. Among its most recent initiatives is the creation of standard guidelines for Comprehensive School Eye Health Programs, which will potentially benefit over 700 million children worldwide.
“IAPB is the global alliance for the eye care sector worldwide”, said in an interview Peter Holland, Chief Executive of IAPB. “We're a membership organisation. We've got almost 300 members now, drawn from non-governmental organisations, eye hospitals, academic institutions, and a growing corporate sector membership as well.”
IAPB has existed for almost 100 years, he added. “It was actually founded in 1928 by a group of ophthalmologists coming together who were particularly concerned about the causes of avoidable blindness. At that point, it was focused on the infectious diseases that caused blindness, and it was quite active in the 1930s, but with the Second World War, it went into decline.” It was revived in 1975.
Holland also had a personal story to share with us. “A couple of years ago, my daughter took part in a school show, and as a result of the lighting there, she suffered retinal damage. Since I live in a country where there is fantastic eye care, as a result of the eye care she received, her eyes have improved, and she's been able to take her end-of-school exams. She did very well this year, and she's going to go on to study neuroscience.”
“The point is”, he adds, “that absolutely everybody has those kinds of stories. We've got a campaign, Every Story Counts, because we have loads of numbers in the sector, but behind each of those numbers is an individual, is a person. We want people to tell their stories, to bring those numbers to life.”
Together, these three organisations remind us that restoring sight is not only about healing eyes — it is also about unlocking human potential. Their work continues to illuminate the path ahead, turning what was once considered impossible into everyday reality for millions. As avoidable blindness still needlessly affects so many people worldwide, their vision — of a future where no one is left in the dark — has never been more urgent, or more inspiring.
