Kathmandu Nepal
In a ceremony held in Bahrain, Dr. Sanduk Ruit, co-founder of the London-based NGO Tej Kohli and Ruit Foundation, was awarded the Isa Award for Services to Humanity by the King of Bahrain.
The Isa award was established in 2009 to honor individuals and organizations that have served humanity in a profound way.
Dr. Ruit, known as the “God of Sight,” was born into humble beginnings in a rural area of the Taplejung District in the foothills of the Himalayas. Despite being born to illiterate parents, Dr. Ruit excelled in his studies.
Tragedy struck when two of his older siblings passed away when Dr. Ruit was young, and later, when he was 17, his younger sister Yangla tragically passed away from tuberculosis.
These deaths of his siblings from ailments that would have been easily treated in the West ignited a desire within Dr. Ruit to train to become a doctor.
After graduating, Dr. Ruit focused on treating people for cataract blindness in rural and deprived communities.
He vowed to develop new methods and institutions to provide quality, affordable, and sustainable eye care to prevent and cure untreated cataract blindness within the impoverished communities of the developing world.
In 1995, Dr. Ruit opened a factory in Nepal that reduced the cost of the interocular lenses used during cataract surgery from 150 USD to under 3 USD, making cataract surgery accessible to people in low-income countries.
He also developed a low-cost surgical method for treating cataract blindness that is now taught in universities in over 60 countries worldwide.
It is believed that over one million blind people have regained their sight thanks to Dr. Ruit.
Dr. Ruit has personally performed surgery on over 130,000 patients at mobile eye camps in Nepal, China, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ghana, Indonesia, and even North Korea.
In 2021, he co-founded the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation with an ambition to cure at least 300,000 more people of cataract blindness across the developing world by 2030.
Dr. Sanduk Ruit has previously been awarded Asian of the Year 2007, The Order of Australia 2007, the Prince Mahidol Award of Thailand 2007, and the National Award of Merit from the King of Bhutan 2015.
In 2006, he was awarded The Ramon Magsaysay Award, the Asian equivalent of a Nobel Prize. He will also accept an honorary doctorate from Anglia Ruskin University, a U.K. university, in July 2023.
Tej Kohli, co-founder of the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation said of Dr. Ruit’s latest award, “We are delighted that Dr. Ruit has yet again been recognized for his unique and amazing contribution to humanity. We are all extremely proud to work under his guidance.”
