Clear Vision

At 41, Adimulam Devanand was losing his eyesight. A tailor and father of two children in the village of Gopal Pet, India, Devanand had turned over all the sewing work to his wife before finally seeking help at a local clinic. He was diagnosed with presbyopia, a vision disorder that gradually robs the eyes of their ability to focus.

A few years ago, Devanand would have returned to his shop with little hope of working again, but through an innovative micro-enterprise program, he was able to purchase a pair of glasses for 150 rupees (about $3.75) and get back on the job. “Now I can share all the work with my wife,” Devanand told the International Herald Tribune, “and business has doubled, thanks to my glasses.”

Devanand is one of an estimated 1 billion people worldwide whose poor vision has prevented them from pursuing a trade or education that could rescue them from poverty. In the vast majority of cases, vision problems could be easily corrected with inexpensive reading glasses—a product nearly impossible to find in the developing world. In recent years, however, a number of enterprising companies have been working to meet that demand.

Scojo Foundation, a New York-based non-profit organization, has spent the past five years developing a micro-enterprise system to distribute inexpensive eyewear to those who need it. With grants from George Soros’ Open Society Institute, the Acumen Fund and other supporters, its Scojo Foundation has helped train more than 1,000 “vision entrepreneurs” in Bangladesh, India, Ghana, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico to conduct eye exams and sell inexpensive glasses to those who otherwise couldn’t afford such a luxury.

Scojo can produce and deliver these glasses for about $1 a pair. Their “micro-franchise” partners purchase them for some $2 and sell them for $3.75. This provides a sustainable business model that Scojo founder Jordan Kassalow says can succeed where government and the free market have failed. Since its inception in 2002, Scojo has sold more than 70,000 pairs of eyeglasses this way. Meanwhile, three other noteworthy initiatives are focusing on design advancements that can further lower the cost of corrective eyewear.

Over the past couple of years, the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam has developed universal spectacles, or U-Specs, which allow users to adjust lens refraction manually to suit their particular needs, eliminating the need for an optician or the custom grinding of prescription lenses. Scojo and the D.O.B. Foundation in Veessen, Netherlands, are planning to test U-Specs in rural Guatemala and India.
Renowned Barcelona designer Nacho Martí has created what he calls “stenop glasses,” eyewear without lenses, which are constructed from a single piece of plastic perforated with dozens of tiny holes. Borrowing from the concept of stenopeic vision, often used to treat cataracts, Martí’s glasses could correct many vision disorders at an affordable price.
Saul Griffith, a former researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is hoping to begin producing a machine soon that would significantly reduce the cost of manufacturing affordable prescription eyeglasses. Griffith’s machine, about the size of a snare drum, uses a flexible, programmable mould that shapes an acrylic lens to an optometrist’s precise specifications. Conventional lens-manufacturing methods require the creation of a separate mould for each prescription. Right now, his company, Low Cost Eyeglasses, is still in the start-up phase, but it plans to market eyeglasses throughout the developing world, where people like Adimulam Devanand hope to see brighter prospects.