Gurupriya Vision Research Foundation
GVRF, est. 2009 in Chennai, is Radhatri Nethralaya's charity arm: free eye care & rural ROP screening via Vision on Wheels.
Gurupriya Vision Research Foundation (GVRF) is a public charitable trust established in 2009 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It serves as the philanthropic arm of Radhatri Nethralaya, a NABH-accredited super speciality tertiary eye care hospital, extending the hospital's clinical expertise to communities that would otherwise have no access to specialized eye care.
GVRF's core belief is that preventable blindness should not be determined by a family's postal code or income. Since its founding, the foundation has worked to close the gap between India's urban eye care infrastructure and the rural and economically weaker communities who need it most, by bringing free, high-quality ophthalmic care directly to patients rather than requiring patients to find their own way to a city hospital.
Core Programs:
- Free Eye Care: GVRF provides free eye surgeries, consultations, and treatments to economically weaker sections and rural communities, removing cost as a barrier to sight-saving care.
- Vision on Wheels: A rural teleophthalmology and screening initiative that travels to remote villages across Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh to screen premature infants for Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), a leading and almost entirely preventable cause of childhood blindness. When a critical case is identified, GVRF arranges and funds transport to Chennai so the infant can receive free laser or other vision-preserving treatment before irreversible damage occurs.
- Cataract Camps: GVRF organizes rural cataract surgery camps twice a month in partnership with local NGOs. These camps cover free transport, surgery, food, and accommodation for patients, many of whom are elderly and would otherwise have no means to access or afford treatment.
- Vision Aids & Education: The foundation distributes free low-vision aids to patients with irreversible vision loss, and runs community safety and awareness workshops, including Diwali firecracker-injury prevention programs for school children, to reduce preventable eye trauma.
Recognition:
GVRF's work has been independently recognized at a national level. Its Vision on Wheels teleophthalmology project was awarded an HCL Tech Grant (10th edition) in the health category, and GVRF is a recognized partner of the Government of India's National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB) in the effort to eliminate preventable blindness nationwide.
Affiliation & Location:
GVRF operates out of its affiliated hospital, Radhatri Nethralaya, located at 12, Hindi Prachara Sabha Street, T. Nagar, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600017, India.
Contact:
- Email: info@gurupriyavision.org
- Phone: +91 9344917762
- Website: https://www.gurupriyavision.org/
Fundraisers
Official fundraiser
Every Premature Baby Deserves to See
A baby born too early can develop a condition most parents have never heard of: Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) - abnormal blood vessel growth in the retina that can cause permanent blindness within weeks if it isn't caught in time. The tragedy is that ROP is almost entirely preventable - if a baby is screened early enough and treated with a simple laser procedure, their sight can be saved. The problem is access. India has only about 150 vitreo-retina specialists trained to diagnose and treat ROP, for a country of over a billion people. Nearly all of them practice in major cities. For a premature baby born in a village in rural Tamil Nadu or Andhra Pradesh, the nearest specialist might be hours away — and a baby with ROP can go blind in the time it takes to arrange that trip. Gurupriya Vision Research Foundation (GVRF) , the philanthropic arm of Radhatri Nethralaya eye hospital in Chennai, built a solution: Vision on Wheels . Since its founder first began treating ROP in 2000 and launched this program in June 2018, GVRF's mobile teleophthalmology units have traveled directly to rural hospitals and villages, bringing the screening to the baby instead of asking an already-stretched family to find their way to Chennai. How a screening visit works: A trained technician places a portable retinal camera over the infant's eye. The image is captured and read by specialists trained specifically to detect ROP. Because the disease can progress quickly and unpredictably, each baby typically needs 3 to 4 screening visits over several weeks before they can be safely declared out of risk. If a baby is found to be at risk, GVRF arranges and funds their transport to Chennai for free laser treatment — the procedure that stops the bleeding and saves their sight. This fundraiser directly supports: Screening visits for premature babies across rural Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh Transport to Chennai for babies found to be at risk Free laser treatment for babies who need it Our goal is $14,000 . Based on typical costs for this kind of rural screening and treatment outreach in India, we estimate this could fully screen and monitor somewhere in the range of 15–30 premature babies through their entire at-risk window (all follow-up visits included), plus cover transport and laser treatment for those who need it. This is an estimate, not a precise count - real costs vary by how many babies in a given outreach trip need treatment versus just monitoring — but every dollar goes directly toward getting a mobile screening team to a baby who would otherwise have no access to one. Your contribution gives a baby born too soon a fighting chance to keep something most of us take for granted: their sight.
- Raised
- $0
- Goal
- $14,000
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