Diktel (Eastern Nepal), patients during an eye examination performed by the doctors of Sagarmatha Choudhary Eye Hospital of Lahan.
Nepal - Andho, a brighter future.
Photos: Alessandro Gandolfi
In Nepali language, "andho" indicates a blind person. In Kathmandu, the capital, andho people sing in clubs and play cricket, give massages to mountaineers and run libraries with braille books. In Nepal blindness is a quite widespread disease: the nation is one of the hardest hit in the world compared to the population. And if in big cities to cure cataract illness may be relatively easy, for poorer people living in rural areas it is not. That's why, once a year, Sagarmatha Choudhary Eye Hospital's doctors go on a mission in the most isolated places.

The Sagarmatha Choudhary Eye Hospital is active in Lahan since 1983 and it's funded, among others, by the CBM ngo. Its goal is to help social classes in need of care and it's now considered one of the most important ophthalmic center in Asia. Here patients from Nepal and Northern India are coming with the Cataract Package Tours offering travel, accomodation, cataract surgery and medications for a few dollars. It's a trip of hope for those risking to stay blind forever.