China Network News (Reporter Wu Yifan) On December 26, 2023, the 2023 (3rd) China Public Welfare Forum hosted by China Times was grandly reopened in Beijing. With the theme of "Persistence and Innovation of Public Welfare in the New Era", this forum brought together three generations of Chinese philanthropists from the old, middle and young generations to recall the past, think about the present and explore the future. Brainstorm for the development of China's public welfare undertakings to be more pragmatic, more comprehensive, and more effective, and jointly build and create common development. The forum announced the 2023 China Charity Honors - Top 10 Chinese Public Welfare Figures of the Year, Top 10 Chinese Public Welfare Meetings of the Year, Top 10 Chinese Public Welfare Projects of the Year, Top 10 Influential Enterprises of the Year, and Top 10 Chinese Stars of the Year.
The Bright Project Cataract Restoration Project, organized and implemented by the China Association for the Promotion of Rural Development Volunteer Service, stood out after layers of screening and won the Top Ten Chinese Public Welfare Projects in 2023.
The Cataract Restoration Project of Bright Project won the Top Ten Chinese Public Welfare Projects in 2023
Eye health is an important part of national health, and cataract, as the first blinding eye disease in China, is a major public health and social problem involving people's livelihood. Since the launch of the project in March 2018, under the guidance of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (National Rural Revitalization Administration) and the National Health Commission, and with the strong support of local rural revitalization bureaus, health, medical insurance, blindness prevention, civil affairs and other departments, the China Rural Development Volunteer Service Promotion Association has signed treatment agreements with more than 1,000 medical institutions, basically ensuring that rural cataract patients with difficulties can receive standardized surgical diagnosis and treatment services nearby. As of the end of December 2023, the project has been implemented in more than 1,100 cooperative hospitals in 25 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) across the country, benefiting patients from 297 cities, 2,200 counties and 160,310 villages, screening more than 33 million people, treating more than 2.35 million rural cataract patients, and subsidizing more than 560,000 patients with difficulties, making it the largest ophthalmology public welfare project in China.
Zhang Mengxin, Director of the Expert Committee of the China Association for the Promotion of Volunteer Service for Rural Development, delivered a speech at the forum, pointing out that poverty due to illness and return to poverty due to illness are still the first reasons for rural people to return to poverty. Cataract is highly frequent in China, with about 4 million cases of surgery every year, and many rural cataract patients cannot get timely due to economic difficulties, resulting in blindness and loss of working ability, and it is easy to return to poverty due to illness. Director Zhang Mengxin appealed that public welfare is a long-term and arduous task, which requires our continuous efforts and exploration. We are very much looking forward to establishing cooperative relations with more organizations, enterprises and individuals to jointly relieve the suffering and send light to many rural cataract patients who are living in difficulty, and jointly make the "Bright Project", a project that benefits the people and warm-hearted projects, do better, benefit thousands of households, and work together to help rural revitalization and the construction of a healthy China.