Fred Hollows has set up a solar energy system at the Madang Eye Clinic involving 160 photovoltaic panels and six batteries all running from a 20-foot shipping container.

The panels have been placed on the clinic's roof and the PNG country manager for Fred Hollows Lucinda Gulluman-Kisip said they have now been able to replace the service provided by PNG's national power grid.

She said power outages are a common service feature from the national grid.

The Fred Hollows Foundation has thanked the Australian NGO Cooperation Program, the Pacific Development and Conservation Trust, and the many New Zealanders who donate to it for providing the support to get the solar power system up and running. Read more

"Performing one million eye operations and treatments in a single year is an important milestone and one I am incredibly proud of," says Brian Doolan, Chief Executive Officer, The Fred Hollows Foundation.

"We are now so much closer to our goal of ending avoidable blindness."

Occurring over 20 years after his death, it is a result that Fred Hollows himself would have been immensely proud of achieving.

"Fred would never have imagined The Foundation would grow to achieve so much and transform the lives of so many millions of people in the world's poorest communities," says Gabi Hollows, Founding Director of The Fred Hollows Foundation.

With The Foundation's eye care specialists performing over 1,004,975 operations and treatments in 2016, the charity has seen more than a 10 per cent increase than on the previous year.

These included 147,000 sight-restoring or sight-saving cataract operations, performed in some of the poorest communities around the globe.

"Fred fought tirelessly for a world where no one is needlessly blind," says Andrew Bell, Executive Director of The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ. "Reaching over one million operations and treatments in a single year is a tribute to the global organisation and its commitment to Fred's unstoppable nature.

A nature that inspired a new generation to carry on his sight-restoring work - with these sorts of staggering results."

25 years ago, The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ was established and initially raised money to support the global organisation, who work to end avoidable blindness in over 25 countries around the world.

Then, in 2002, the NZ Foundation began restoring sight and training eye health workers in the Pacific Islands, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste, where four out of five people who are blind don't need to be. Continue reading

Sources

• Pacific.Scoop
• Image: YouTube

The Naililili Catholic Mission was the last of the Fijian locations used.

The Mission, which is on an island in a river, is accessible only by boat.

The church at Naililili, built in 1849 by French missionaries.

Its stone walls, blackened by age and weather provided a dramatic backdrop.

Although it was exam time, 15 students from the local school were exempted so they could be extras on set.

But the 15 turned to dozens as the children got wind of the visitors and flocked to see the stars.

Shortland Street has been running in Fiji for 22 years.

While in Fiji, actors Kerry-Lee Dewing, Ria Vandervis, Sam Bunkall and Michael Galvin were swamped by fanatical fans delighted to meet their favourite soap stars.

Galvin was subject to adulation of "Beatle-mania-esque" proportions. He was accosted and jostled: shouts of "Chris" sound in the streets, by the pool, in the airport.

Source

• The Herald on Sunday
• Image: Jae Frew