Our 25th Anniversary
A Retrospective Film on All the AECP Has Accomplished in 25 Years
Founded in 1992, the Armenian EyeCare Project has made revolutionary advancements in the delivery of eye care in Armenia and has changed the landscape of eye care in the tiny jewel of a country forever.
During the last 25 years the Project has followed our vision for Armenia — a country where no individual is without access to quality eye care; where Armenian ophthalmologists are trained to diagnose and treat eye disease at the highest level; and where preventable causes of blindness are eliminated through an emphasis on prevention and early intervention.
With the generous support of our donors we have done some amazing things in Armenia and we would like to share these accomplishments with you. Told through patient stories, physician interviews and an overview of our programs, this short retrospective film illustrates what the AECP has achieved in 25 years of service in Armenia.
From helping a little girl named Tsovinar regain her sight after a tragic landmine accident killed her brother and left her critically injured with a piece of shrapnel in her eye to providing cataract surgery for Ernest, an elderly man living in rural Armenia with no access to eye care until our Mobile Eye Hospital to saving a newborn baby named Michelle from a life of blindness with a sight-saving ROP surgery, these are just some of the ways the AECP has changed people’s lives and just a few of the hundreds of thousands of patients in Armenia who we have helped through the gift of sight.
Due to our several sight-saving programs like the Mobile Eye Hospital, which travels throughout Armenia and offers eye care to the country’s most vulnerable citizens; the Center of Excellence for the Prevention of Childhood Blindness, which focuses on advancing eye care and combatting eye disease among premature infants and children in Armenia; and the Regional Eye Clinics, which have established eye clinics in four regions throughout Armenia where the most vulnerable Armenians live, the EyeCare Project has been able to offer eye care to nearly 500,000 patients in Armenia, restore the sight of close to 20,000 Armenians through surgery; and distribute more than 70,000 eyeglasses to Armenians at no charge.
Our focus on medical education and training has also proved vital in creating a self-sustaining eye care delivery system in Armenia. Learning early on that training Armenia’s physicians, nurses and medical personnel is the way to foster true advancement in the health care sector, we’ve sponsored fellowships for Armenia’s top ophthalmologists to receive expert training at the finest medical institutions in America (later returning to Armenia to establish and direct Subspecialty Clinics in their fields of expertise) and developed training programs for hundreds of other doctors, nurses and medical personnel in the art and science of ophthalmology.
During our 25-year history, the Project has accomplished a lot in Armenia and continues to make great strides in their care for patients and to advance ophthalmology in Armenia. Watch “Our 25th Anniversary Story” to discover what the EyeCare Project has done in Armenia in the past 25 years and what we continue to do in the country.
