The Fred Hollows Foundation launches Freddy Bear to restore sight.

This World Sight Day, Australians are being urged to get behind the work of a legendary Aussie doctor, Fred Hollows, whose Foundation has helped restore sight to three million people in Australia and around the world.

More than 1.1 billion people globally suffer vision loss due to a lack of eye health services. According to the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, this creates an economic loss of $AU530 billion annually.

Former Australian of the Year, Fred Hollows, was a world-leading eye doctor who travelled Australia and the globe restoring sight to patients and training hundreds of surgeons.

A year before he died in 1993, he and his wife Gabi set up The Fred Hollows Foundation to continue his mission of preventing avoidable blindness.

The Fred Hollows Foundation has helped restore sight to 3 million people, however with further funding, more can be done, which is why on World Sight Day, they launched a new Freddy Bear to honour Fred Hollow’s legacy and raise further funds for The Foundation.

“Fred was often described as being a bit gruff but with a soft heart. I think he’d laugh that his likeness has been turned into a soft, cuddly bear!” said Fred’s daughter Rosa.

Rosa, who was three when her father died, said he would be immensely proud of the difference he has made and says the launch of the new Freddy Bear is a fitting way to raise funds for the foundation named after her Dad.

“My dad Fred had great hope that we could make the world a better place, and through Freddy Bear, we want to pass on that dream to the next generation of kids all over Australia,” she added.

Rosa also shared that although her son Louie will never know his granddad, with the launch of Freddy Bear he can now cuddle the teddy bear version of him.

“We hope that Freddy Bear will be a cherished souvenir for kids, parents and families, reminding them of my dad’s incredible legacy and with Christmas coming up, we think Freddy Bear will make a perfect gift for someone you love while also helping to restore sight.”

Stats published by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness show 90 per cent of people with vision loss live in low and middle-income countries.

But the issue still affects Australia where First Nations People are three times more likely to be blind than other Australians.

Related: Fred Hollows Foundation & 25 organisations unite for First Nations allyship

When Fred was alive they were 10 times more likely to be blind. While visiting remote areas of the Northern Territory in the 1960s, he was appalled by the frequency of an eye disease called blinding trachoma.

Fred Hollows’ outrage and advocacy led to the National Trachoma and Eye Health Program. Between 1976 and 1978 he led a team that visited more than 465 communities and treated more than 100,000 patients, halving the rate of blindness for Aboriginal Peoples.

In the 1980s and 1990s Fred took his work to Nepal, Eritrea and Vietnam, where he treated patients and taught surgeons new techniques for cataract operations and other procedures.

Over the past 15 years, The Fred Hollows Foundation has screened 41 million people, performed 1.5 million cataract operations, and trained 2,131 surgeons.

Aussies have the chance to help continue Fred’s legacy by purchasing a $60 “Freddy Bear”, with $25 from each sale going to restoring sight to needlessly blind people around the world, including here in Australia.