Kilimanjaro Project receives 2015 António Champalimaud Vision Award

The 2015 António Champalimaud Vision Award is given to three institutions that have developed a unique collaborative project to achieve the common goal of fighting blindness and poverty in Africa. The Kilimanjaro Project brought together the Kilimanjaro Centre for Community Ophthalmology, the Seva Foundation and Seva Canada. These three institutions are active in an unusual combination of areas to fight poverty, fight blindness and create economic sustainability through microcredit and microfinance solutions. By combining their resources and know-how they have been able to make a significant impact on the ground. With a focus on equality, the project makes use of clinical, scientific, social and microcredit tools to support sustainable health and finance solutions led by African teams. These microcredit programmes open new perspectives and give new meaning to traditional activities such as crafts, putting the outcome of these activities at the service of the people and offering these forgotten communities a new way of life and sustainable development.

The Kilimanjaro Project operates in one of Africa's most dramatic settings, in an area ravaged by extreme poverty, natural disasters, disease and blindness, affecting unimaginable numbers of people.

The 2015 António Champalimaud Vision Award recognises the efforts of organisations working with limited resources but able to overcome difficulties to produce visible change. The award will contribute to this effort to change the lives of thousands of people, especially children, who still live under conditions of extreme poverty and curable blindness. This work will give vision back to many and ensure that many others who see today, may not later lose sight.