Training & Development
Training the next generation of sight.
Local eye doctors, technicians, and nurses who’ll keep restoring vision long after we leave.
What this means
Restoring sight is a skill that must be taught.
Across many of the countries we serve, eye doctors are rare — in some regions there is only one ophthalmologist for hundreds of thousands of people. Our colleges train ophthalmologists, ophthalmic technicians, optometrists, and nurses from the communities that need them most. Graduates stay where they trained, become the local experts, and pass their knowledge to the next class. Every camp, every surgery, every pair of glasses depends on this pipeline.
Why it matters
A camp restores sight for a week. A trained doctor restores it for a lifetime.
Every mobile camp eventually packs up. Every visiting surgeon eventually flies home. What stays behind is the local team, and the people they will go on to train. Without that pipeline, free eye care is a temporary fix. With it, blindness prevention becomes self-sustaining.
- The world needs many more eye doctors than it has. In some of the countries we serve, the ratio is one ophthalmologist to hundreds of thousands of people. Training local professionals is the only way to close that gap.
- Local doctors stay where they’re needed. Graduates trained in their own region understand their patients’ language, culture, and economic reality. They are far more likely to remain in service after qualifying.
- One graduate becomes hundreds of patients, every year. An ophthalmologist performing routine cataract surgeries treats thousands over a career. Training one doctor is, in effect, restoring sight for many.
- Knowledge passed on is knowledge multiplied. Today’s graduates become tomorrow’s teachers. Each cohort raises the next, expanding capacity faster than we ever could alone.
2,212+
Graduates now serving as qualified eye-care professionals. Each one trained at our colleges, restoring sight in their own communities, every day, for the rest of their careers.
Where we teach
4 colleges. 3 countries. One mission.
Pakistan | Founded 1999
Isra Postgraduate Institute of Ophthalmology
Recognised by the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan for postgraduate fellowship training. Produces fully qualified eye surgeons who staff hospitals across South Asia and Africa.
Pakistan | Founded 2006
Isra School of Optometry
Trains optometrists and refraction specialists — the mid-level workforce that makes screening, refraction, and prescription glasses possible at every primary-level clinic.
Sudan | Founded 2007
Makkah Ophthalmology Technical College
Sudan's leading institution for ophthalmic and technical eye-care training, with graduates trained in English-language bachelor's and diploma programmes.
Niger | Founded 2022
Niger Institute for Comprehensive Eye Health
The training arm for Francophone West and Central Africa. NICE held its inaugural convocation in January 2025, awarding bachelor's degrees to its first graduates.
Every graduate becomes a teacher in turn. Long after our team moves on, each college keeps training the next generation of local eye-care professionals.
Our curriculum
Three pillars of eye-care training.
Each college specialises differently, but every graduate joins one of three workforce tiers, covering the full pipeline of eye care.
Ophthalmologists
Fully qualified eye surgeons trained through postgraduate fellowship programmes. Recognised by national medical councils, equipped to perform cataract surgery, glaucoma management, corneal transplants, and complex specialist procedures.
Optometrists & refractionists
The mid-level workforce that makes population-scale screening and glasses provision possible. Trained through four-year vision-science degrees and specialised diplomas in refraction and orthoptics.
Ophthalmic technicians & nurses
The clinical backbone of every eye hospital and outreach camp. Trained to assist in surgery, manage post-operative recovery, run diagnostic equipment, and deliver pre-screening at scale.
One graduate, many lives
“I grew up watching my grandmother go blind because there was no one to treat her. Now I am that someone.”
Dr. Ameer Khalid
Doctor | Dhaka, Bangladesh
Your impact
Three ways to train the doctors of tomorrow.
Sponsor a Student for One Year
From $1,200
Cover one year of tuition, materials, and clinical training for a future eye doctor, technician, or optometrist. The most direct way to add a sight-restoring professional to the world.
Sponsor a StudentSupport a College
$2,500 to $25,000
Equip a teaching lab. Fund a microscope, a simulator, or a year of consumables — the infrastructure that makes hands-on training possible.
Choose Your AmountEndow a Scholarship (Waqf)
From $25,000
An ongoing endowment that funds a named scholarship in perpetuity. Each year, a new student trained. Each graduate, decades of patients restored. The Waqf model at its most multiplying.
Learn About WaqfA lasting endowment
Train one doctor. Restore sight for thousands.
Endowing a scholarship through Waqf turns a single gift into decades of sight-restoring care — a Sadaqah Jariyah whose reward continues with every patient that graduate ever treats.
Trust & accountability
Your gift, accountable in every direction.
AL BASAR USA is a Texas-registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit (Federal Tax ID: 92-1804033). Donations are tax-deductible and Zakat-eligible. Our work is independently verified by Candid and reported in our annual statistics.
Join us
Train one doctor. Change a region forever.
Sponsor a student. Equip a college. Endow a scholarship. Every gift builds the workforce that ends preventable blindness for good.
Every donation is Zakat-eligible and tax-deductible. AL BASAR USA, a vision for all.