Needless Blindness across the country!

It was a truly introspection day for all of us when our train just reached Madurai. In this temple city lies a non-profit enterprise envisioned by Dr V in providing world respected Eye care. We were on a roll right from the word GO. Woke up at 7:10 AM and had a quick bath in our special ablutions coach, while Swapnil is pushing us to jump out of the train ASAP. Had a quite heavy nastha , grouped into F & G for easy access to discuss on the Role Model Analysis. It’s a tough job for the 3 facilitators to bring the 42 spirited youth to agree on some concept. We have 3 days to figure out the structure of our presentation and everything looks bizarre to start with. Slowly we evolved as a team in our 40 minute journey from Madurai station to Aravid Eye Care Center. We were greeted by the authorities and crowd management team guided us to a auditorium. There we were introduced to the genesis of Aravind, the founder who started this hospital and how it grew! 30 yrs of service, this was run by the family of Dr V not compromising on the principles and vision of its existence. This was a real eye opener for me on how a social enterprise evolved over a period of time. Offering almost  2/3^rd of the 400,000 surgeries for no cost, and still have a sustainable scalability. The Presentation by Dr. Aravind is awesome in depicting the success of the business model in its impact to the society with the concept of needless blindness. I simply appreciate the work of this organization as almost 80% of the 12 Million cases in our country can be treated.

Apart from the vision of Dr.V , the idea of educating almost 12,000 rural women and providing into mainstream healthcare sector is change maker to the system. Empowered women in making them into a good wife and responsible mother. After a quick lunch pack journey to Aravind Vision Centre , we were told of its business possible where the minimum service can be received at just only Rs20/- .Had friendly discussions with local villagers on what problems they face!  It was fun and shared my thoughts with Prakar and others on my business proposal. Maybe I have to stick to the farmers with land for now and later expand to landless farmers in its implementation. Need to rework on this model for effective results. The excitement came to an end where we reached back to Madurai and boarded the train to Chennai after snacks. Later we regrouped in our compartments to finalize on the structure of our presentation. Had dinner and slept with my thoughts.