Himalayan Cataract Project awarded $25,000 Kristof Holiday Impact Prize

November 27, 2020 |  By Lisa Scagliotti

At a surgical outreach clinic in October in Bisidimo, Ethiopia, a Himalayan Cataract Project team checks vision in post-op patients before they go home. Photo courtesy of the Himalayan Cataract Project.

New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof continues his annual project of highlighting life-changing nonprofits ahead of the holidays and the Waterbury-based Himalayan Cataract Project is at the top of the list this year. 

In a column published Nov. 21, Kristof announced his choices for the 2020 Holiday Impact Prize and the Himalayan Cataract Project was one of two runners-up to receive $25,000. 

“Every year at this time I offer a holiday guide suggesting ‘gifts with meaning’ rather than one more scarf or tie that will sit in the bottom of a drawer,” Kristof wrote. “This year I recommend three inspiring organizations that can help you transform a life – and I bet your Aunt Mabel would prefer such a gift in her name to more perfume.”

This year’s $100,000 grand prize goes to CAMFED, the Campaign for Female Education, that educates girls in Africa, most of whom in turn mentor young girls and women to continue the cycle CAMFED begins. The other runner-up to receive $25,000 is OneGoal, a U.S. organization that mentors high school students in low-income communities – most of whom are students of color – to help them finish high school and successfully enter college. 

Founded in 1995, the Himalayan Cataract Project has brought eye care to underserved areas of the world while concurrently training local eye-care personnel. Its signature mission has been performing more than 1 million sight-restoring cataract operations while working with local partners to screen and treat more than 12 million people. 

“When someone is cured of cataracts, they are no longer a statistic. They are able to get their life back,” said project co-founder Geoff Tabin. “People go from being completely blind to the day after surgery being able to see again, often with 20/20 vision. There is really no other intervention in medicine that provides this kind of miracle.”

Today the organization works in more than 20 countries across Africa and Asia with its main focus on Nepal, Ghana and Ethiopia, according to spokesman Kyle Martel. Its work in Nepal in particular has proven to be a model to replicate elsewhere as it has contributed to a substantial decline in blindness in the country.

The project employs 18 people and its administrative office is in Waterbury; its clinical base is in Stanford, Calif., and its procurement operation is located in Silver Spring, Md.  

Kristof has been writing a “holiday gift guide” column since 2009 with the goal of highlighting little-known organizations focused on health, education, human rights and women’s rights both domestically and abroad. He said he began the exercise as a way to “play matchmaker” where he introduces readers to organizations that are “working to make the world a better place” and worthy of financial support. 

This is the second year that the project has had funding to kickstart contributions after several donors agreed to fund the prize money. The nonprofit Focusing Philanthropy works to process reader donations, cover administrative fees, and report back on the effort.  

Last year, Kristof said, readers contributed $3 million to the groups he spotlighted. Kristof also highlights organizations where people can volunteer rather than make financial contributions. This year he selected nonprofits that worth to provide children with reading mentors and with court-appointed child advocates for those in foster care.  

More information about Nicholas Kristof’s Holiday Impact Prize and this year’s winners including a link to Kristof’s Nov. 21 column can be found at KristofImpact.org.

Kristof traveled to Nepal and reported for the New York Times on work by doctors with the Himalayan Cataract Project. His report can be found here.