Now in its third year, our Global Education Impact feature continues to spotlight the institutions and programs leading the way in tackling global healthcare inequality.

In 2025, we add six more profiles to our prestigious list. While the geographical locations of the entrants this year vary dramatically (countries represented include Poland, Morocco, Columbia, Armenia, and Ukraine, with SEE International being the only US-based organization featured), what unites all of these organizations is a deeply-held belief on making eye care more equitable and accessible to the populations they cater for.

These are institutions and programs aiming to eliminate preventable blindness from their regions (and sometimes, as is the case with SEE, more globally), who are committed to delivering their care and training to areas otherwise neglected.

We hope you agree that this important list reflects both a local and global focus on enhancing ophthalmology for the next generation.   

L’Association Marocaine Médicale de Solidarité (AMMS)

Established in 2003 by a group of volunteers eager to respond to the King of Morocco’s ceremonial speech calling for national solidarity, L’Association Marocaine Médicale de Solidarité (AMMS) is a Moroccan non-profit organization aiming to bring healthcare and medical education to underserved communities across various regions of the country.

In accordance with the constitutional reform proposed by the country in July 2011, which stipulates that “the State, public establishments and local authorities work to mobilize all available means to facilitate equal access for citizens … to health care,"AMMS operates mobile units to reach remote and isolated villages and towns across the region. These mobile medical units are equipped with high-end surgical and medical equipment, and operated under the supervision of both a medical and technical team.

AMMS’ current fleet of medical vehicles consists of four mobile ophthalmology units (the first unit gifted by Sheikha Fatima, third wife of the founder and inaugural president of the United Arab Emirates ((UAE)) in 2007), a mobile general surgery unit, a mobile pediatric unit, a mobile dental unit, and a multidisciplinary mobile unit.

Since establishing its substantial fleet of mobile units, the organization has sought to actively recruit medical students in its outreach work. “Rather than limiting student roles to observation, AMMS has developed a model that places students at the center of its activities – engaging them in logistics, health education, digital outreach, and direct patient care, all under the guidance of experienced mentors,” explains Maryame Boutkhil, a medical doctor and PhD candidate at University College London (UCL) who has participated in various outreach programmes organized by the association. “This approach helps students develop clinical confidence and soft skills, while also allowing them to contribute meaningfully to public health delivery.”

Most recently, between 2023 and 2024 the organization has engaged in 123 outreach events, reaching over 11,000 patients requiring ophthalmic care, most of whom came from remote or rural communities and accessed care via AMMS’s aforementioned mobile clinics.

“At least 96 medical students took part [in these events], playing active roles across all stages of service delivery,” says Boutkhil. “For the first time, students also led 95 community awareness sessions – 45 in schools and 50 in AMMS centers – reaching more than 7,000 people with messages on hygiene, chronic illness, and substance use. They further expanded their impact by producing more than 200 educational videos in social media, viewed thousands of times online, and by raising $6,000 in support of AMMS programs.”

Last year, AMMS’ outreach efforts were officially recognized by the Moroccan Center for Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship (MCISE), a non-governmental not-for-profit organization based in Rabat, who awarded the organization with its prestigious Moroccan Social Innovation Award.

“AMMS’s long-standing commitment to delivering healthcare in hard-to-reach places, combined with its innovative use of mobile technology, educational media, and mentorship, makes it a powerful example of how inclusive and community-based education can improve health outcomes,” concludes Boutkhil. “It also brings together young professionals, including medical students, doctors in training and experienced consultants, and gives them the tools, trust, and structure to grow into future leaders capable of tackling Morocco’s challenge of healthcare access in remote areas.”  

Ukrainian Alliance of Ophthalmologists (UAO)

Founded in 2016 by Professor Oksana Vitovska, head of the ophthalmology department at Bogomolets National Medical University in Kyiv, the Ukrainian Alliance of Ophthalmologists (UAO) is a non-profit ophthalmology-based professional association based in Ukraine. The alliance serves as a broad coalition, bringing together not only ophthalmologists in the country, but also optometrists, opticians, technicians, nurses, and other medical staff, all with the unified aim to educate and support all levels of eye-care practitioners in Ukraine.

In recent years, war and widespread instability has meant that the continuity of medical education in Ukraine has become a pressing challenge for those  in the country. Ukrainian ophthalmologists must now navigate destroyed facilities, displacement, power outages, and interrupted communication networks to operate on patients. Traditional education formats – such as hospital-based training, seminars, and face-to-face mentorship – have become unreliable or impossible to maintain. Despite these overwhelming conditions, the need for high-quality patient care persists, and the UAO has risen to meet this challenge with urgency and innovation, by creating a robust digital ecosystem to support its eye care professionals.

Through its creation of a number of innovative solutions – Ophthalmic iSchool (a virtual learning space where Ukrainian ophthalmologists share clinical cases and receive input from peers and senior experts online), the OphthalmicHub annual congress (Ukraine’s most comprehensive ophthalmic event that acts a venue for collaboration between Ukraine’s specialized ophthalmic organizations, with attendees to the congress operating in blackout conditions, due to attacks of drones and rockets), and Dr.Ophtik (an innovative AI-driven chatbot educational assistant, first introduced internationally at ESCRS 2024, that is designed to operate through the widely used Telegram platform) – UAO continues to ensure that ophthalmologists remain connected, informed, and supported, even in active conflict zones.

Speaking of the organization's founder Oksana Vitovska, one of the nominators of the program, Yulia Malyovana, Chief of the Modna Optika Optician Network, observes: “Professor Oksana Vitovska is a role model for female scientists in ophthalmology, not only in Ukraine but worldwide. Each of her projects is a challenge to herself and the circumstances. Since 2018, Oksana has been organizing the largest interdisciplinary innovative ophthalmological conference in Ukraine, OphthalmicHUB. In recent years, this has been done amid constant shelling and blackouts. Her example as a courageous leader, thoughtful doctor, and interested scientist has nurtured a whole generation of women in ophthalmology.”

In the face of such crisis, Professor Vitovska’s organization has pioneered a new standard for digital ophthalmic education. By developing these adaptable virtual platforms for ophthalmic practitioners, UAO has sustained – and even expanded – access to professional learning and community support. This model, born out of war-ravaged necessity, offers valuable lessons for other health systems confronting crisis or disruption. UAO’s experience shows that with determination and innovation, educational excellence can be sustained, even in wartime. These efforts are not only keeping Ukrainian ophthalmology alive; they are shaping its future.  

Surgical Eye Expeditions International (SEE International)

Founded in 1974 by Dr. Harry S. Brown– who, after seeing widespread preventable blindness during his medical mission work, set up the organization to bring free eye care to underserved populations– Surgical Eye Expeditions (SEE) International already boasts an established reputation within ophthalmology.

As a non-profit humanitarian ophthalmology organization, the organization works both globally in low-resource settings, and locally in its home region of Santa Barbara, California, to ensure that vision care is accessible to all, regardless of geography or ability to pay.

Its core mission is to end preventable blindness by providing free sight-restoring surgeries and medical and educational eye care services to those individuals who otherwise would not have access to this care. Operating in over 40 countries, SEE annually sends volunteer teams of ophthalmologists, allied eye-care staff, and support volunteers to run short-term surgical clinics in underserved areas around the world. These clinics often involve cataract surgery, treatment for other vision-impairing conditions, and supply donations.

“SEE endeavors to encourage local units to become self-sufficient in providing high quality eye care by the combination of training and the supply of equipment,” explains nominator Jeremy Joseph, a consultant ophthalmologist in the UK who regularly attends around five eye care humanitarian missions each year with the organization.

Meanwhile, another nominator, Kevin Barber, President of the Advanced Center For Eyecare Global in Bakersfield, California, says, "SEE International is a global leader in education. They fund countless ‘travel to teach’ teams to augment the surgical education of many LMIC [Low- and Middle-Income Countries] eye care teams. They have been a leader in MSICS [Manual Small Incision Cataract Surgery] surgical technique training, performing wet labs, sponsoring wet labs and partnering with other institutions to provide real surgical training. They support many educational grants for LMIC residents and fellows to further their surgical education. [As] the CEO of ACE Global, who work in training fellows in Latin America, SEE international is our largest supporter."

Over its 50-plus years’ history, SEE International has restored sight to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. According to the organization’s own website, SEE has reached over five million patients in 54 different countries, performing surgery and restoring sight to a staggering 750,000 people around the world. “Having worked in global education for 20 years,” Barber adds, “I can’t think of a better organization to receive this recognition.”

Over 40 years ago, ophthalmic care in northern Colombia was fragmented, under-resourced, and largely inaccessible. Determined to change that reality, Dr Luis Escaf Jaraba – a prominent Colombian ophthalmologist, retina/vitreous surgeon, innovator, and educator – founded Clínica Oftalmológica del Caribe (COFCA), a specialized eye health clinic located in Atlántico, Colombia.

Since these beginnings in 1985, the clinic – funded by nonprofit collaborations with Christoffel Blindenmission, Rotary Club, and ORBIS’ first Flying Eye Hospital mission to the country – has positioned itself as a space combining medical excellence with cutting-edge technology, compassionate patient care, and acting as a “one-stop shop” for visual health.

"The Caribbean Ophthalmology Clinic has accumulated nearly 40 years of uninterrupted trajectory in the [Columbian] healthcare sector,” notes CEO Jorge Jose Martinez Ramirez. “This path has positioned it as a reliable, solid, and steadily growing institution, with a social and educational impact model focused on reducing inequities in visual health across Latin America. Since its beginnings, it has integrated technological innovation, structured training, and community outreach to ensure equitable access to high-quality ophthalmology services and to train new generations of specialists capable of meeting the region’s challenges.”

At the center of the clinic’s rush to meet these eye care challenges head-on is the Matrix Program, an international teaching platform created by COFCA in 2021. “To date, [Matrix] has trained more than 200 fellows from Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, Mexico, and El Salvador,” Ramirez explains. “The program offers immersion modules in Cataract, Retina, Oculoplastics, Glaucoma, and Cornea, under the direction of Dr. Luis Escaf and a multidisciplinary faculty team.”

One of COFCA’s major differentiators in its surgical training is its Ophthalmic Surgery Training Center, a simulation and surgical skills lab with multiple stations for hands-on training using artificial and animal eyes, which is unique in Colombia, and comparable to the best in Latin America. The center, which combines state-of-the-art simulators (such as EyeSi and HelpMeSee) with laboratories using artificial eyes, allows surgeons the ability to acquire surgical skills before ever treating real patients. Chief Scientific Officer of COFCA, Luis Carlos Escaf, explains how “this environment allows residents and fellows to master surgical skills in a risk-free setting before entering the operating theater – raising the safety and quality of surgical care throughout the region.”

“The infrastructure enables practice of complex procedures such as cataracts, intraocular lens placement, epiretinal membranes, and posterior vitrectomy,” adds Ramirez. “The training is complemented by three high-tech operating rooms equipped with NGENUITY 3D visualization and ORA intraoperative aberrometry, ensuring premium-level surgical education.”

“Today, COFCA offers a full 3-year ophthalmology residency program and fellowships in Cataract, Cornea, Retina, Glaucoma, Oculoplastics, and Orbit, producing subspecialists capable of delivering world-class care in both high-resource and resource-limited settings,” exclaims Carlos Escaf. 

“COFCA’s integrated approach has transformed a region once devoid of subspecialty care into one delivering developed-nation levels of ophthalmology. Its model is sustainable, scalable, and already influencing care far beyond Colombia,” Carlos Escaf adds. “Through visionary leadership, innovation rooted in local needs, and a four-decade commitment to equity, Clínica Oftalmológica del Caribe has permanently reshaped the ophthalmic landscape of northern Colombia and beyond.”

Armenian EyeCare Project

“Founded in 1992, the Armenian EyeCare Project (AECP) is a charitable foundation with a bold mission: to eliminate preventable blindness and ensure that every individual in Armenia has access to high-quality eye care,” says John Hovanesian, a previous Power Lister and cataract and cornea specialist at Harvard Eye Associates in southern California, and a nominator of the project.

The non-profit organization was founded by American pioneer ophthalmologist, Dr Roger Ohanesian, who established AECP in response to the growing wave of blindness sweeping through Armenia in the 90s, attributed to many years of hardship caused by earthquakes, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and years of ongoing war and economic blockades, all of which contributed to a deteriorated health care system and lack of infrastructure and access to basic supplies throughout the country. 

Since its establishment, AECP’s vision for Armenia has been to develop the country into a place where no individual is without access to quality eye care, where Armenian ophthalmologists are trained to diagnose and treat eye diseases, and where preventable causes of blindness are fully eliminated. Throughout its history, AECP has continually targeted socially vulnerable populations in the regions that have limited access to eye care and has intentionally worked to provide care to those deprived of it.

AECP currently operates under what it calls a five-point integrated strategy. “This five-component strategy – direct outreach, public education, data analysis and research, capacity building, and professional training – ensures a holistic approach to eye care development,” explains Hovanesian.

Direct outreach and public education form major components of this strategy, with Hovanesian explaining how the organization’s educational initiates are a cornerstone of its impact. “With over 30 active projects across Armenia, AECP blends humanitarian outreach with cutting-edge medical education,” Hovanesian adds. “AECP exemplifies the spirit of global education by facilitating the transfer of knowledge from leading institutions in developed countries to practitioners in Armenia. Through strategic partnerships with Yerevan State Medical University, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, University of California (Irvine and Los Angeles), Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris, USAID, and the World Diabetes Foundation, AECP pairs local trainees with expert mentors. These collaborations create a dynamic learning ecosystem where Armenian professionals gain exposure to advanced techniques and diverse clinical perspectives.”

Since its inception, AECP has screened over 500,000 patients and performed over 20,000 surgeries in Armenia, with its combined subspecialty clinics handling an estimated 50,000 patients per year, covering a broad range of eye diseases. Each of these subspecialty clinics is directed by Armenian physicians who, sponsored by the EyeCare Project, have completed fellowships at medical institutions and teaching facilities in the US, before returning to their homeland. They cover subspecialist areas in retina, glaucoma, corneal-uveitis, neuro-orbital, pediatrics, and low vision.

Speaking of how AECP’s impact extends further beyond its country’s own boundaries, Hovensian explains: “Armenian physicians trained through AECP programs often pass on their expertise to peers in other countries, creating a spillover effect that amplifies the reach of professional education and strengthens regional medical networks.”

“AECP is not merely an organization – it is a movement that brings sight, knowledge, and hope to the farthest corners of Armenia and beyond,” adds Hovanesian. “For its transformative role in ophthalmic education and its dedication to uplifting diverse generations of eye care professionals, AECP deserves recognition as a global leader in medical education."  

“Okulistyka 21” Foundation

Established in 2012 in Poznań, Poland, Foundation Okulistyka 21 was set up under the leadership of Andrzej Grzybowski, Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Warmia and Mazury, and intended to further the development of ophthalmology in Poland.

The organization’s stated mission is to promote eye health, improve quality of ophthalmic treatment for both adults and children, and support prevention, education, research and innovation in the field. To accomplish this mission, Okulistyka 21 works across several complementary areas, including education, research & clinical trials, public health projects, early vision screening, advocacy, and technological innovation.

Head of the Ophthalmology Department at the Florian Ceynowa Specialist Hospital in Wejherowo, Maciej Gawęcki, notes how “Okulistyka 21 plays a crucial role in increasing awareness, improving treatment quality, and fostering trust in eye care across Poland,” thanks to its organization of conferences, webinars, and public campaigns, and its grounding in current scientific knowledge that remains wholly independent of commercial influence.

Similarly, Stephen G. Schwartz, Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology and the Medical Director of the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Naples, says how “Okulistyka 21 is a unique organization. I don’t know any other organization which is quite like it. It provides high-quality, free online educational conferences with an international faculty from around the world. The organization’s founder, Prof. Andrzej Grzybowski, has worked tirelessly to provide this content to ophthalmologists around the world.”

Speaking also of Okulistyka 21’s founder, Professor Zbigniew Zagorski, chairman emeritus at the Tadeusz Krwawicz Chair of Ophthalmology at the Medical University of Lublin, notes how “Andrzej Grzybowski (pictured right) is one of the most active and influential ophthalmologists in Poland over the last decades, with significant national and international impact. His primary mission has been the education and promotion of new and innovative methods for the prevention and treatment of ocular diseases. This initiative has proven highly successful, achieving a broad global educational impact through carefully designed programs.” In my opinion, the ‘Ophthalmology 21’ Foundation represents a highly important and effective initiative. It not only provides valuable education to eye specialists and students but also contributes to reducing inequalities in access to healthcare, both globally and locally.”