: After Friend’s Death He Quit IIM Dream to Start Eye Donation Centres Help Over 3000 #IndiaNEWS #Lede Swapnil Gawande, founder of Deesha International Eye Banks, was all of 10 when he lost his close

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After Friend’s Death He Quit IIM Dream to Start Eye Donation Centres Help Over 3000 #IndiaNEWS #Lede
Swapnil Gawande, founder of Deesha International Eye Banks, was all of 10 when he lost his close friend Abdul to dengue in 2006. Swapnil always wished to find a way to help Abdul see, who was born visually impaired. But the tragic incident stirred something in him and Swapnil started paying more attention to news regarding eye donations.
The conversation around eye donations was not yet mainstream, at least in Maharashtras Amravati district where Swapnil is from. So, he would find excuses to talk about it through school elocution and essay writing competitions.
His father Arun, who was working with a private firm, joined in the quest to search for eye care infrastructure for another grave reason. Arun’s friend’s son had lost an eye due to an accident and the transplant was possible but the nearest eye donation centre was far away.
Swapnil visits a rural school
For the next couple of years, the father-son duo met 40 ophthalmologists across Amravati and Nagpur. In 2010, they formally registered a non-profit ‘Deesha Medical and Education Foundation’ to establish eye banks and provide affordable eye checkups.
“Sure, there was no eye bank in our district but what made things worse for my friend were his financial conditions. He was raised by a single father who did not have enough money for his cornea transplantation. Among all the organs, the eyes get the least attention when it comes to donation. We wanted to change that and thus began ‘Deesha’, which means ‘direction’,� Swapnil tells The Better India.
The 29-year-old now runs five eye banks across Maharashtra. His organisation has encouraged more than 14 lakh people for eye donations.
Thousands of people have pledged for eye donation through Deesha
Of the six lakh people who have pledged to donate through Deesha, Swapnil has facilitated more than 3,200 donations. Additionally, his bank has conducted 2,100 cornea-related surgeries, including cataracts.
A recipient of the Global Nagpur Award, 2021 and SPJIMR Alumni Award, 2021, Swapnil has given up a lot in the process.
Instead of doing undergraduate work at the Vellore Institute of Technology, he chose to stay in Amravati and study in a local college to build Deesha. He chose SP Jain Institute of Management and Research in Mumbai over IIM in Ahmedabad for his MBA to be close to Amravati and his father. As a violinist, he also put his music hobby on the back burner.
A police team pledge for eye donation
Letting go of lucrative career opportunities in corporates was not an easy decision given that he had several challenges to address while developing eye banks.
Swapnil takes us through his journey and shows us that there’s light at the end of every tunnel.

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