Vivekananda Mission Asram Netra Niramay Niketan

Vivekananda Mission Asram Netra Niramay Niketan (VMANNN), located in West Bengal, India, has offered community-oriented eye hospital services to an underserved region of rural India since the early 1990s. The eye hospital is located on what is referred to as a service and education campus. The campus includes pre-school to advanced education for more than 6,000 students, some of whom are sighted and some of whom are blind. The eye hospital provides approximately 14,000 surgeries annually and offers the only specialty services available in the area for pediatric ophthalmology, cornea and glaucoma.

Seva has partnered with VMANNN since 2006. In more recent years, the program has added eye care training and community research. VMANNN has initiated a mentoring and training process with six surrounding eye hospitals which are severely underperforming with the support of Seva and the Global Sight Initiative network. The aim for their mentee hospitals is to at least double surgical productivity within three years. Many of VMANNN’s staff have been trained at AECS or at LVPEI and numerous projects and interests continue to be shared. VMANNN also partners with Seva through the TOMS One for One program and Focusing Philanthropy’s World Sight Day campaigns, providing subsidized direct services, including glasses, medical treatments and surgeries.