KnowTheGlow Co-Founder Megan Webber and Director of Global Outreach Helene Dameris recently had the privilege of connecting with Punam Bhandari, a dynamic leader with Cure Blindness (Cure Blindness Project), to explore potential pathways for collaboration in raising awareness around preventable childhood blindness. Their conversation offered a window into the far-reaching work of Cure Blindness—and the profound hope it brings to communities across Asia and Africa and also coincides with the Current KTG awareness Campaign running in Nepal and Tibet right now.
Punam works extensively in Nepal and Bhutan, the latter of which she described as a unique and resilient country—still governed by a king, with much of the population spread across remote mountain regions. Despite these logistical challenges, she noted that Bhutan’s integrated health system has made it an ideal model for scalable eye health initiatives.
Cure Blindness was originally founded in 1995 by the esteemed Dr. Geoffrey Tabin and world-renowned Dr. Sanduk Ruit as the Himalayan Cataract Project, designed to support Tilganga Eye Hospital and expand eye care services to isolated communities in the mountains of Nepal. Since those early days, the organization has grown exponentially—both in scope and geography. Cure Blindness Project now operates in over 30 countries, with core programs in Nepal, Bhutan, Ghana, and Ethiopia, and an expanding presence in India, Pakistan,Bangladesh, Afgansthan Myanmar, and additional countries throughout Africa.
Today, Cure Blindness focuses on four foundational pillars that guide its mission. The first is capacity building, which involves comprehensive training for ophthalmology residents, fellows, faculty, ophthalmic assistants, nurses, eye care professionals, and Female Community Health Volunteers. This includes hands-on skill transfer sessions, continuing medical education, curriculum-based primary eye care training, and virtual classrooms offered throughout the year. The curriculum spans far beyond cataracts, equipping local teams to manage a broader range of diseases including pediatric conditions, diabetic retinopathy, and glaucoma. The second pillar centers on infrastructure, where Cure Blindness Project supports partners in hospital construction and equipment provision while also collaborating with governments to strengthen both tertiary and secondary care systems—emphasizing sustainability through local ownership. The third pillar is the continuation and expansion of surgical services, with more than 115,000 cataract surgeries performed in 2024 alone expected to do 250,000 surgeries in 2025. This includes support for eye banking, pediatric surgeries, corneal transplants, and advanced surgical techniques. Finally, Cure Blindness Project’s growing focus on prevention has been strengthened through its acquisition of SightLife International, with programs designed to train teachers, nurses, and ophthalmic assistants in the early identification of eye diseases and the creation of referral pathways for timely treatment.
In Bhutan, Cure Blindness Project recently introduced universal well-baby eye screenings—an initiative that began after Punam was searching for a lower cost alternative for ophthalmoscopes and was connected with Dr. Andrew Blaikie of Arclight through IAPB. With support from the Bhutanese Ministry of Health, they added eye screening to the country’s child health handbook and trained reproductive health departments to incorporate vision checks into routine pediatric visits. The program’s success has prompted similar discussions with Nepal’s Ministry of Health, which is now exploring the integration of eye screening into both school-based and well-child healthcare systems.
Punam also shared the impact of one father’s journey: after hearing about free eye screenings, he traveled five hours to bring his daughter in. Though her condition turned out to be more complex than initially thought—a prosthetic eye was ultimately required—her case underscored the vital importance of awareness and access. “It’s these stories that remind us why we do this work,” Punam said.
Training remains central to Cure Blindness Project’s impact, and Punam highlighted the critical role of Dr. Purnima Rajkarnikar Sthapit at Tilganga Institute of Opthalmology, who trains fellows from Ghana and Ethiopia while also leading clinical research,and international training. Dr. Purnima, a long-standing advocate for children with retinoblastoma, continues to support the RB community through her own private NGO, Open Eyes Nepal.
Punam herself first learned of KnowTheGlow through Megan Webber’s presentation at the IAPB conference summit in Mexico where Punam was a featured IAPB Young Systems Leader , and she expressed enthusiasm at the potential for collaboration. She suggested that raising awareness through platforms like TikTok—especially popular in Nepal—could help KTG’s messaging reach remote villages and underserved families. These efforts, she noted, need not require significant funding and could easily integrate into existing child screening programs.
In addition to her work with Cure Blindness Project, Punam is also involved with *All Hands and Hearts*, a nonprofit formed in the wake of Nepal’s 2015 earthquake to rebuild disaster-resilient schools. That spirit of resilience and community recovery continues to guide her work—whether through rebuilding educational infrastructure or restoring the gift of sight.
The conversation between Punam Bhandari and the KTG team reflected a deep mutual admiration for each other’s work and a shared dedication to early intervention, sustainable eye care, and community-centered advocacy. Both organizations see great value in storytelling, education, and locally-driven solutions—and left the discussion inspired by the potential to support one another’s missions in meaningful and creative ways in the near future.
