Ronald McDonald House Charities® (RMHC®) has been a supporter of ORBIS since 2001, funding pediatric eye care projects in Bulgaria, Cost Rica and India.

India is faced with one of the largest populations of blind children in the world, and RMHC support has helped ORBIS in its efforts to build a pediatric eye care network across India. To date, ORBIS has established 30 Pediatric Eye Care Centers in India toward a goal of 50, screened nearly 5,900,000 children for eye problems, medically treated over 1,000,000 children and provided sight-saving or sight-restoring surgery to more than 84,000 children.

Our efforts to build pediatric eye care capacity in India have been expanded in recent years to include Bangladesh through ORBIS's South Asia Childhood Blindness Project. RMHC current grant will enable ORBIS to increase the capacity of seven Pediatric Eye Care Centers in Bangladesh as well as establish one new Center. RMHC is also supporting ongoing pediatric efforts in India.

A key feature of ORBIS's work in India and Bangladesh is a focus on community level prevention and treatment. ORBIS helps its hospital partners to establish primary eye care clinics, outreach programs and referral networks. ORBIS provides partners with the necessary training, equipment, facility development and administrative and management support to increase the quality and quantity of children's eye care.

RMHC support of this South Asia Childhood Blindness Project will enable ORBIS to reach more than 700,000 children in Bangladesh and India by 2015 (and ultimately more than 1,300,000 children by 2017) by providing them with access to quality eye care.

For more information about RMHC, visit www.rmhc.org.