Perhaps for the first time you see your grandchild's face, once more you can see the sky and the mountains.

For those involved with Rotary Tasmania, it is rewarding to know they are making a real difference. 

Since 2011 individual clubs, the Rotary district of Tasmania and the Rotary Foundation have been supporting a project that is giving sight to thousands.

The Gift of Sight Eye Hospital is a project funded by Rotary, and provides free eye screens and eye surgery to the underprivileged in Nepal. 

The project boasts impressive figures. Since 2011, more than 11,000 screenings have been carried out and site restored to more than 900. 

In February this year, 14 Tasmanian rotarians travelled to Nepal to visit the eye hospital, located south of the capital Kathmandu in a town called Hetauda.

It was a chance to see first hand the impact the project was having. 

Winston Quaile was the group leader and said the opportunity to see the work being done at the hospital was rewarding. 

“They’re people who are passionate about their country and they're doing it very tough due to everything that's happened to them and they're still incredibly appreciative of the smallest things we do for them and it makes you feel very very humble,” he said. 

Every year the hospital sets up satellite screening stations in the more remote and rural parts of Nepal, this year at Sariket and Gaidatar. 

Over the course of the stations’ opening they screened 1055 people for a range of eye complaints. 

“It’s not only cataracts they’re talking about, they're talking about infections, theyre talking about other eye disease,” rotarian and editor of the district governors newsletter Rod Oliver said. 

It is not always an easy journey for people to reach the screening stations. 

“Some of the people who come from the outlying areas will walk for several hours,” Mr Oliver said. 

Mr Quaile adds, “In fact take some days at times depending what screening are they’re heading for.”

Those in need of surgery are then bussed back to the hospital where they receive their life-changing treatment. 

“[It makes] the world of difference, a lot of their cooking is done over fires and, or gas and with poor eyesight or no eyesight horrific injuries do occur; knocking over boiling water and all sorts of things,” Mr Quaile said. 

“There’s no social, government assistance to them and so … they're on their own except for family support and as a result horrific injuries occur.

“If they go back after these eye camps they find themselves back at their village and wow they can see again; they see through new eyes – literally.”

Mr Quaile said there is also the ripple effect of it releasing family members for needing to care for them, who can then do other tasks and work. 

“Plus it gives them a new lease of life as they go back with new eyes and it’s just amazing,” he said.

The project would not be possible without the sister rotary club of Hetauda in Nepal, who work on the ground with the eye hospital to co-ordinate.  

“The Rotary Club of Hetauda has been in important link in Nepal, they have … overseen the projects to ensure they are completed and the money isnt just siphoned off,” Mr Oliver said. 

He believes the great achievements the joint Rotary organisations they have been able to attain together is something worth celebrating. 

“I think one of the things thats stuck with me … is that for those that have cataract operations say they have a bandage applied and the next morning these bandages are removed and the dramatic effect of before the operation and the bandages being removed and for the first time in several years they can see,” Mr Oliver said. 

But the Tasmanian rotary involvement in Nepal doesn’t end there. 

On various trips the rotarians have taken to the country, they have also noted other projects that could improve the lives of the Nepalese. 

Some of these other projects that have come to rotarians attention are building schools, providing toilets for schools and providing piped, clean water to villages. 

After the devastating earthquake in 2015, that levelled parts of Nepal and killed over 10,000, the Rotary clubs of Tasmania again answered the call and raised money to rebuild three schools. 

In 2016 visiting rotarians noticed students of a blind school were using a playground into which raw effluent was running; they set their sights on fixing this and work has began in excavating, backfilling and concreting to remedy the situation. 

“That is a really rewarding thing, to see Tasmania has sponsored an improvement in those kids lives and it wouldn't have happened without people last year seeing the problem and then this year it will be fixed,” Mr Quaile said. 

The work Tasmanian Rotary clubs has done and continues to do is testament to what a group of passionate people can achieve. 

“I regard this as really grass roots foreign aid its got an immediate outcome so thats the type of things that really motivates us to be involved,” Mr Oliver said.