2018-2025

Reading glasses for the working poor

2018-2025

Visionspring

VisionSpring works to provide affordable glasses for people living on less than $4 per day. It partners with non-profits, social entrepreneurs, government and corporations, providing training to carry out eye tests, sell low-cost glasses and bring vision to communities. Since 2018, we have funded its programme Reading Glasses For Improved Livelihoods in Bangladesh. The programme will be the country’s largest source of vision screening and glasses.

www.visionspring.org

CHALLENGE

In Bangladesh, long-sightedness affects a third of adults over 35, reducing their ability to see clearly and therefore to work, care for families, drive safely and enjoy the best quality of life. The optical market and health system are failing to meet the vision correction needs of low-income people.

ACTION

Since 2006, VisionSpring has been working with BRAC’s community health workers, mostly women, training them to carry out basic vision tests and to sell low-cost reading glasses to people living in some of the most rural areas of Bangladesh.

Reading glasses are now an integral part of the bundle of goods and services that the community health workers provide for their local communities, including contraception, sanitary towels and basic medicines.

The community health workers offer vision screening free of charge and earn a commission for each pair of glasses sold. This incentivises them to visit more households and contributes to their livelihoods at the same time.

VisionSpring aims to expand the Reading Glasses For Improved Livelihoods programme nationally in the coming years, correcting the vision of over 630,000 working people with low incomes and training 24,000 community health workers.

IMPACT

Glasses are a powerful tool for social and economic development. A randomised control trial conducted in Assam, India found that a pair of reading glasses can increase productivity by an average of 22% and up to 32% among workers over the age of 50.

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