12 July 2012, London. Dr. Mahabub Hossain, Executive Director of BRAC, has attended a number of high profile events in London this week to highlight the success of Vision Bangladesh and launch a Ramadan advertising campaign with four Bangla TV stations to help raise donations. Vision Bangladesh is an innovative large-scale partnership programme between BRAC and Sightsavers, with the target of eliminating cataract blindness in Sylhet Division by December 2013 and across the whole of Bangladesh by 2020. By the end of June 2012, the programme was well ahead of schedule with 526,000 people screened and 61,000 sight restoring operations performed in Sylhet. During Ramadan alone, Vision Bangladesh will be identifying and treating 2,500 cataract cases.
Dr. Mahabub Hossain stresses on how public support continues to be critical:
“We know the British Bangladesh communities have been very generous in the past to Vision Bangladesh and donated through public appeals and online. We would like to thank those people and also encourage more people to donate – we still need to raise funds to complete 39,000 operations. Help us help those who are blind – just £20 can give the gift of sight and change a person’s life forever.”
Dr. Hossain was also the guest of honour at a VIP event for Vision Bangladesh, held at the Churchill Room at the Palace of Westminster on Wednesday 11 July 2012, hosted by Nicky Morgan, MP - a staunch supporter of Vision Bangladesh who visited the programme through the Conservative Party’s Social Action Project in 2011. There was a large turnout from leaders of the British Bangladesh business community; many of whom made pledges to support the programme.
