On Wednesday 6th September, The St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group won the 2023 edition of the António Champalimaud Vision Award. The Ceremony was held at the premises of the Champalimaud Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal.
The award was announced in a ceremony chaired by the President of Portugal, H.E Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the President of the Champalimaud Foundation, Leonor Beleza, in the presence of public figures and international organisations’ representatives.
The one million Euro award recognises the Hospital Group’s longstanding charitable provision of eye care in the region for the last 140 years. First established in 1882 by the late Queen Victoria, the St John Eye Hospital served millions of people to restore their sight in war and peacetime in the wider Middle East region and has been serving the poor and the sick in the Palestinian territories, including the Gaza strip, West Bank, and East Jerusalem. The mission of the Hospital Group is built upon the ethos of the Venerable Order of St John in serving humanity.
Launched in 2006, the globally renowned António Champalimaud Vision Award is the largest award in all fields of Vision, recognising leadership in both Scientific Discovery and Humanitarian Impact. The Foundation, constituted at the bequest of the late Portuguese industrialist António Champalimaud, is based in Lisbon, Portugal, but its action in several fields spans the globe.
Under the Chairmanship of Prof Alfred Sommer, the International Jury Panel comprises world leaders in ophthalmology, research, and global public health, in addition to prominent individuals in the field of international development and outstanding scientists in fundamental research and biomedical sciences such as Susumu Tonegawa, a Japanese scientist who was the sole recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1987; Amartya Kumar Sen, an Indian economist and philosopher, who was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences; and Gullapalli Nageswara Rao, an Indian Opthalmologist, and founder of the L. V. Prasad Eye Institute.
Everyone at St John congratulates The St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group on winning such a prestige award!
All photos © Rui Ochoa
