Roti, Kapda aur Makaan for the society

Madhusudhan has made over 15,000 people pledge their eyes after death. Of the 15,000, over 500 IAS, IPS, and IRS officers took the pledge for eye donation

Yuvraj Akula

According to World Health Organisation, about 285 million people are visually impaired across the globe. India is slowly becoming home to the largest number of visually impaired people, with over 15 million blind people. Of the 15 million, 75 percent of the cases can be avoided through organ donation. In a move to eradicate blindness in India, 27-year old Madhusudhan Reddy, hailing from a poor family from Medak District, has made over 15,000 people pledge their eyes after death. Of the 15,000, over 500 IAS, IPS, and IRS officers took the pledge for eye donation. According to him, “Every year 90 lakh people die and 1.8 crore eyes are perish. If one could utilise those eyes for implant among the visually impaired people, in the next 5 years, India will not have visually challenged people.”

Hailing from a very poor family did not deter Madhusudhan to take up social work. After losing his father at a tender age, his uncle, a top cadre officer in AP Government, helped him through his journey towards social work. He worked as an accountant at a milk centre in Medak district and pursued his career. He did his MA in Social Work from Telugu University.

Since his childhood, he was into social work, educating poor students with the knowledge he gained from his school. With an aim to improve lives of poor and underprivileged people, he established a Prajahitha, a non-profit organisation in 2012. Prior to the establishment, he took up many social activities like blood donation camps, eye donation campaigns, education awareness campaigns and career guidance for students. He supports an orphanage ‘Lalana’ which has 25 underprivileged children below 15 years. Apart from providing education to the students, he helped Anurag, an orphanage home to build bathrooms for students.

Every Sunday, he visits couple of orphanage homes to teach children about life skills and communication skills. Going by his service to the society in 2008 he was conferred with NTR Seva Award. He went to every engineering college in Hyderabad to create awareness on eye donation among the students. He is now doing a door-door campaign on eye donation, to mark eye donation fortnight which started on August 25 and will end on September 8.