The John Fawcett Foundation is an Australian charity which works in Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

 to provide eye cataract

Cataract

A cataract is a clouding that develops in the crystalline lens of the eye or in its envelope, varying in degree from slight to complete opacity and obstructing the passage of light...

 surgery and prevent blindness

Blindness

Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...

.
The organization's founder, John Fawcett, started his humanitarian work in Bali

Bali

Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...

, Indonesia, in 1989 with a program to help children afflicted with cleft lips and palates. The work escalated and expanded and has resulted in the formation of The John Fawcett Foundation and its Indonesian counterpart Yayasan Kemanusiaan Indonesia which, in December 2006, was judged the best NGO in Indonesia by the Indonesian Government.
All services provided by The John Fawcett Foundation/Yayasan Kemanusiaan Indonesia are free of charge to the recipients who come from the lower socio-economic group. The Foundation works closely with local Government services, and is supported by private and corporate donations.

Sight restoration and blindness prevention

This is the Foundation’s flagship project, providing eye screening, glasses and free cataract surgery for the poor in programs in Bali and other provinces of Indonesia.

Free cataract surgery

The Project incorporates mobile clinics and hospital-based programs which provide cataract surgery. The fully equipped mobile surgical units work in villages in remote areas in Bali, Lombok

Lombok

Lombok is an island in West Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. It forms part of the chain of the Lesser Sunda Islands, with the Lombok Strait separating it from Bali to the west and the Alas Strait between it and Sumbawa to the east...

 and South Kalimantan

South Kalimantan

South Kalimantan/South Borneo is one of the thirty-three Provinces of Indonesia and one of four Indonesian provinces in the Indonesian part of Borneo. The provincial capital is Banjarmasin...

, and a hospital-based clinic is located in East Lombok. Since its inception in 1991 the Project has provided over 25,000 sight-restoring operations. The operations are free to people who are blind simply because they cannot afford the price of an operation. This gift of sight takes under 20 minutes, the costs of which are covered from donations to the Foundation.

Field eye screenings

The Foundation conducts regular Field Eye Screening trips in remote villages in conjunction with its cataract programs, with teams screening up to 600 village people in a single-day trip, checking visual acuity, treating minor eye problems, and at the same time identifying people who would benefit from cataract surgery. The teams also issue free spectacles for those who need them. Primary school children are also tested by the teams, identifying those with sight problems, and issuing glasses if required.

Children's corrective surgery

This program incorporates cleft lip and palate surgery and other corrective surgery, and has assisted over 1,590 children and young people. The operations are performed by local Balinese surgeons, who are trained on a regular basis in the specialized surgical techniques by visiting volunteer Australian plastic surgeons.

Assistance to desperately ill children and young people

The Foundation arranges and pays for treatment for children suffering life-threatening illnesses or conditions which adversely affect a child’s quality of life, when their families have no way of paying. This assistance can range from a major operation to the provision of basic medical treatment, nutritional assistance or advice.

Education assistance

This Program assists children from poor families to stay in school. A donation of A$100 pays for the majority of school expenses for a primary school child in Bali. The funds are deposited in a local bank account from which the family can withdraw the necessary funds each month for their child’s schooling. At the end of 2009, the Foundation was assisting 576 children in this Program.

Equipment acquisition

The Foundation collects medical equipment surplus to the needs of medical practices and hospitals in Australia, reconditions it and ships it to Bali in its own container. The equipment is distributed to needy hospitals in Bali which treat the poor. Equipment includes basic items such as hospital beds, patient trolleys, infusion stands, humidicribs for newborn babies and anaesthetic machines.