Vietnam – The Association of Poor Patients

When the Association of Poor Patients was founded in 1994, thousands of children’s lives were literally transformed. The Association serves Vietnam’s youngest and most excluded citizens -- children with physical disabilities born to extremely poor families. The organization funds free medical treatment and makes surgeries available to those with heart diseases, hare lips, cataract and other debilitating defects.

The Western Union Foundation supported the Association’s successful “Bring Sight to the Blind” program with a three-year grant of $150,000. The gift covered free cataract surgery for some 2,000 children between 2005 and 2006, with another 800 expected to receive procedures in 2007. Because of the nature of the surgeries, children once blind fully recover their vision.

More than 200,000 children throughout Vietnam have been given the gift of sight and remarkably, some provinces have even eliminated blindness altogether as a result of the work of the Association of Poor Patients.

Thanks to the partnership with Western Union Agents: Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development; Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Private Enterprises; Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank; and Eden Trading Company, bringing vision to so many children is an enduring gift that also reaps rewards for families and whole communities.