On July 30, at the EyeChina Global Eye Forum 2022 and AIER Eye Hospital Group (referred to as AIER) 20th-anniversary celebration, AIER released a big charitable strategy: In the next ten years, AIER will donate 20 billion yuan to build a sustainable eye healthcare ecosystem that considers people in all social groups， focusing on the strategic objectives of the ecosystem， promote the systematic solution of social eye health problems and make everyone enjoy accessible and high-quality eye health services for sure.

Yongfu Liu, Deputy Director of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (referred to as CPPCC) National Committee, former Party Secretary and Director of Poverty Alleviation Office of The State Council, and President of China Rural Development Volunteer Service Promotion Association; Naikun Wang, Member of the Standing Committee of the twelfth National People's Congress, Vice Chairman of the Fifth and Sixth presidium of the China Disabled Persons' Federation, Deputy Secretary of the Communist Party of China (referred to as CPC) Leading Group and Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the China Disabled Persons' Federation, and Chairman of the China Disabled Persons' Welfare Foundation; Wei Qiao, former Vice Chairman and consultant of All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, Chairman of Overseas Chinese Charity Foundation of China; Changjiang Guo, former Deputy Party Secretary and Vice President of the Red Cross Society of China, former Chairman of the Red Cross Foundation of China; Shaohua Sun, Vice President of China Charity Federation; Xiaochao Bei, Chairman of the Red Cross Foundation of China; Youping Liu, Executive Deputy Secretary-General of China Charity Alliance; Jianmei Peng, Vice President of the Charity Branch of the China Association of Social Security and Deputy Director of the Center for Contemporary Chinese Studies, Tsinghua University; Guanjun Zhao, editor-in-chief of the China Philanthropy Times and Deputy Secretary-General of the China Association of Social Workers with Fang Huang, President of the Hunan Women's Federation; Ziyin Zhang Executive Deputy Director of Department of Civil Affairs of Hunan Province; Qiuguang Zhou, President of Charity Research Institute of Hunan Normal University, Vice President of Hunan Charity Federation, member of a council of Eye Care Foundation with many big names in the charity field attended the forum.

The charitable strategy of AIER for the next decade was launched

More than 1 billion people can be avoided vision impairment, there's also a lack of ophthalmic medical resources

According to the World Vision Report, at least 2.2 billion people worldwide are visually impaired or blind, among them at least 1 billion of these problems could have been prevented. Based on the Major Report on Global Eye Health, global inequality in vision impairment is high. Children, older people, women, rural people and ethnic minorities are more likely to have impaired vision, and 90% of visually impaired people live in low - and middle-income countries.

China is one of the countries with the largest number of blind and visually impaired patients in the world. Age-related eye diseases such as cataracts, glaucoma and fundus disease are on the rise. More than 600 million people suffer from shortsightedness, ranking first in the world. According to the White Paper on China's Eye Health, although the Cataract Surgery Rate (referred to as CSR) per million population in China has increased from 300 in 1999 to nearly 3000 now, it is still low in the world.

At the same time, there were still clear shortages of eye doctors, there are 44,800 eye doctors in the country, on average about 50,000 people have 1.6 eye doctors, and mostly concentrated in urban hospitals in a prefecture-level city or above, due to the severe lack of medical resources in rural and remote areas, those only with access to primary healthcare cannot get effective treatment and may have severe vision loss and even blindness. Ophthalmic medical resources are still scarce in some areas of China.

20 billion yuan will focus on philanthropy, ophthalmic talent training, and academic research development

Statistics show that in the past 20 years, AIER has supported more than 600 charity projects, covering more than 300 regions in 31 provinces and autonomous regions, donated 2 billion yuan in total, provided more than 200 million public welfare services, and performed 1 million public welfare operations. AIER has won the national award "China Charity Award" twice in a row.

Fen Cheng, Assistant Dean of the China Philanthropy Research Institute, released the AIER Philanthropy Report

"AIER ‘s philanthropy has experienced four stages of development, namely, the germination of public welfare, actively engaged in blindness prevention and treatment with government, the scale effect of public welfare emerging and the systematic and professional operation. In the Process of Development, AIER’s charity projects have three major characteristics: large donation contribution, relatively clear donation mechanism and leading donation strategy in China. AIER is a model of eye health public welfare, a model of strategic philanthropy, a model of common prosperity and a model of the good economy!" Fen Cheng, Assistant Dean of the China Philanthropy Research Institute, said at the launch of the AIER Philanthropy Report.

爱尔眼科医院集团董事长陈邦主题发言

Bang Chen, Chairman of AIER, delivered a keynote speech

AIER has always adhered to the original aspiration and mission of "Enabling everyone, whether rich or poor, has the right to eye health", dedicated to the cause of light for all mankind and always be "patient-centred", the pursuit of social responsibility and their development of harmony and unity. Bang Chen, Chairman of AIER said, "To focus on the construction of government guidance, enterprise investment, foundation operation, extensive participation of social organizations, institutional implementation, domestic and international interconnected development, covering a wide range of people eye health public ecosystem， in the next decade, AIER will invest 20 billion yuan, with Eye Care Foundation and XiangJiang Foundation as the partner, in conjunction with the social organizations we will form a public welfare team in the eye health field with extensive coverage and professional standards, deepening the support eye health philanthropy and ophthalmology talents cultivation, as well as the development of academic research."

Yuewen Zhang, Party secretary of AIER, introduced the details

Yuewen Zhang, Party Secretary of AIER introduced， that 10 billion yuan out of the 20 billion yuan will be mainly carried out through Eye Care Foundation，including cooperation with major public welfare organizations to launch basic eye disease relief projects with a well-established eye disease relief system; Establishing a special fund for prevention and control of myopia among children and adolescents; Set up a public welfare zone for poor people with eye diseases; A special fund will set up to train and improve the diagnostic ability of primary ophthalmologists and general practitioners. Support to carry out ophthalmic epidemiology survey and eye health-related research; To establish grass-roots eye disease diagnosis station and donate intelligent diagnostic equipment for ophthalmology.

Another 10 billion yuan will be focused on the cultivation of ophthalmic talents and the development of academic research through the XiangJiang Foundation. Including the establishment of an ophthalmology special research fund, a global ophthalmology research award, strengthening the depth of cooperation between domestic and international famous universities and scientific research institutions, joint training of high-end ophthalmology talents and the establishment of a high-quality, characteristic, international ophthalmology medical college.

A charitable strategy advisory expert committee was established, with the wisdom and support of many charitable magnates

To further promote the strategic, systematic and professional development of AIER’s philanthropy, the conference also established AIER’s charitable strategy advisory expert committee. Wei Qiao, Changjiang Guo, Qiuguang Zhou, Youpin Liu, Jianmei Peng and JingPing Jin, Head of the Peking University Nonprofit Organization Law Research Center and Associate Professor of Peking University Law School, are lighting the philanthropy bulb with eyecare wisdom.

Experts of AIER’s charitable strategy advisory expert committee

Wei Qiao, a member of the committee, spoke as a special expert representative

Qiao Wei pointed out that in the review of the history of AIER’s philanthropy, indeed we have seen that the operation helped patients to get rid of eye diseases and see the world again, It has brought profound changes to poor families, which embodies the love of the whole society and the dedication and skills of AIER’s medical staff. It also demonstrates the social responsibility and original intention of AIER as a national enterprise. "In the future, we will give full play to our professional strengths, and pool the wisdom and efforts of everyone to AIER's philanthropy, we must work together to promote the development and progress of human eye health cause!"