Sankara Nethralaya - Out of the global blind population of 37 million, 15 million are from India. Thankfully, 75 % of these cases can be prevented by a simple procedure known as cataract surgery. To address the blindness issue in India, Living Legend, Padmabhushan Dr. S. S. Badrinath started Sankara Nethralaya in 1978 in a modest scale, which today caters to 3,500 – 4000 outpatients and 250 - 300 surgeries per day throughout the nine facilities throughout India.

Sankara Nethralaya USA was established in June 1988 in Rockville, Maryland, USA as a 501 (C) (3) non-profit organization.

Objective – The sole objective of the Trust is to support Sankara Nethralaya (SN), Chennai, India, a comprehensive eye care center for providing free eye care of international standard to indigent patients in the Indian sub-continent. In addition to their main campus in Chennai, Nethralaya has hospitals in Sri City in Andhra Pradesh, and Kolkata in West Bengal.

Administration – The Trust is administered by thirty-five uncompensated Trustees spread across USA. The Trust has major operations in Washington, DC, New York, NY, Houston and Dallas, TX, Chicago, IL, Atlanta, GA, and Los Angeles and San Francisco, CA. Due to active participation by the volunteers and the Trustees, administration overhead expense of the Trust has been in the range of one percent of the total collections

Fund raising Events – Since inception of the Trust, a number of events were held in various parts of US to provide awareness of Nethralaya’s mission. Concerts by renowned artists such as K J Yesudas, A. R. Rahman, Sudha Raghunathan, Lalgudi Jayaraman, Bombay Jayshree, L. Subramaniam, T N Krishnan, and Dr. Shoba Raju were held in propagating the worthy cause of Nethralaya. In addition, a number of events were held using local talents, chess competitions, walkathons etc., as fund raising tools.

Donations Use – All the funds raised by the Trust less any fundraising expenses and administrative overhead expenses are transferred to Sankara Nethralaya in Chennai, India.

Additional information - For additional information, please visit www.sankaranethralaya.org or contact (855) 4NETHRA.