Cataract is the leading cause of blindness in Bangladesh, and it is curable. In rural Pabna and Kushtia the operation is not out of reach because it is difficult. It is out of reach because it costs money a family earning a few dollars a day does not have.

$80 restores one person's sight. That is the whole cost of one person's care, not the operation alone. It covers finding them in their own village, screening at an eye camp, the surgery and the lens, seven days of medicine, dark glasses, food and a bed, the journey to hospital and back, and both follow-up visits.

There is no fundraising target on this page. We send money to Bangladesh in batches as it comes in, and our partner begins operating on each batch when it arrives. So there is nothing to promise and nothing to fall short of. Every $80 raised is one more person who gets their sight back.

Where: Sujanagar Upazila in Pabna and Daulatpur Upazila in Kushtia, 125 patients in each, October 2026 to May 2027. Surgery takes place at Grameen GC Eye Care Hospital in Bogura and Ad-Din Eye Care Hospital in Jessore.

Who delivers it: the Association for Socio-Economic Advancement of Bangladesh, registered with Bangladesh's NGO Affairs Bureau since 1995 under number 950, valid to 27 June 2030.

What we are not going to pretend. This project is not yet under contract. It needs a signed agreement with our partner and project approval from Bangladesh's NGO Affairs Bureau, and neither is finished. If they do not come through, we will write to you and either return your gift or ask your permission to move it. And $80 is a published price, not an exact cost: the agreement is written in Taka, so the dollar figure moves, and the difference is held as a reserve.

Your gift is restricted to this appeal. It is tracked separately and spent only on cataract surgery in Pabna and Kushtia, not on our general running costs.

The full appeal, including the complete budget line by line, is at arf-usa.org/sight

Restore Sight in Rural Bangladesh