Eyeglass kits being shipped to West Bank in $50M aid project

A ground-breaking invention will soon be providing a cost-effective way to send prescription eyeglasses to the Middle East.

A contract is in place to ship thousands of USee Vision Kits to Gaza, Palestine, and East Jerusalem as part of a USAID project.

U.S.-based Global Vision 2020 provides prescription eyeglasses to people in the most remote areas on Earth, with more than 400,000 pairs of prescription eyeglasses already given out in 65 countries.

Canadian director Greg Wiens explains how the award-winning product is used.

“You know how you put on a pair of binoculars, and you turn the focus dial till you can see clearly, this works the same way, but it tells the prescription on each eye,” Wiens explained. “And we have precut lenses that fit into good quality lenses. They’re the same frames as Prada activewear and they snap in for under $5 a pair.”

“It’s a tool that gets the ability to make glasses at the base level of the health-care pyramid, so nurses, teachers’ aids, health-care providers – and they can make 92 per cent of the people 20/30 vision or better.”

Global Vision 2020 uses Winnipeg as a hub for distribution and training, with Wiens saying the biggest reason why the charity has been so successful is because they leave the tools in the hands of the communities who need them most.

“Ninety-eight per cent of those glasses have been handed out by local health-care workers, not a western expert that comes in. It is a local health-care provider giving them the tool and the means to take care of their own community.”

Wiens says the charity already brought a few thousand glasses to the West Bank previously, but now will be part of a four year $49.5-million USAID-funded Basic Education Activity (BEA) grant.

“We’re going to be part of that, with engaging this in a significant way of getting these kits into the schools in the West Bank,” Wiens said. “And we’re hoping in Gaza, as things settle down in the next weeks and months.”

While they haven’t been told how many kits they need to pack, Wiens says they are ready for a higher demand.

“I know statistically for children in the West Bank what they need, they need about 500,000 glasses,” he said. “But that’s dreaming pretty big at this point. But if we could get 100,000 out, that would be amazing, especially having the teachers be the local ones who do the work themselves.”

While the USAID grant is still months away from implementation, Wiens says he is excited to see all the change Global Vision can make in the West Bank.