Pay a Little More for Your Curry and Help Restore Someone's Sight

Vision Bangladesh, an initiative run by the charity Sightsavers and the nongovernmental organization Braz, are working to eradicate 80 percent of blindness in Bangladesh by 2020. The plan is simple: Ask customers at UK’s 10,000 Bangladeshi restaurants to donate £1 with their bill. A cataract operation costs £20, and donations could go a long way, with 150,000 new cases reported every year. Blindness from cataracts, so easily treatable, hampers education and work aspirations, contributing to poverty. So far, the enterprise is exceeding the 2011 goals, with almost 40,000 operations and many more screenings conducted in 2011 from £100,000 raised by 300 restaurants in the UK. Sightsavers also offers programs in Nigeria, Kenya, India, Haiti and many other countries. In a globalized world, a diaspora and foreigners can quickly unite in targeting and battling distant challenges. – YaleGlobal