Fred Hollows Foundation

The MoU, which was recently signed by the Board of The Foundation and Tonga’s Minister of Health, Dr Saia Piukala, outlines The Foundation’s commitment to continue to deliver quality eye care services in Tonga, helping to put an end to avoidable blindness in the Pacific, where four out of five people who are blind, don’t need to be.

His family rushed him to the hospital in Tonga but they sent him away. There was nothing they could do because there are no eye doctors or ophthalmologists in Tonga.

Fortunately a Tongan doctor, studying ophthalmology at the Pacific Eye Institute in Fiji thanks to a scholarship from the Fred Hollows Foundation, dropped everything to fly to Tonga and treat the boy.

"Because he was so young he needed his eye repaired as soon as possible," Dr Duke Mataka said. "The handle penetrated the cornea and hit the lens as well."

And for one family, that's a common complaint.

Meet the Timbangs.

They live in Tarlac, about two hours' drive north of Manila, in the Philippines.

The Timbangs have a rare genetic form of cataracts that has left three generations partially blind.

In 25 years, the Fred Hollows Foundation has never had a case like this, with so many members of a family affected.

"The kids are lucky if they can finish grade 6 because they can't even see the blackboard," grandmother Iluminada Timbang Paculanan said.