Ms. Sumana was born in pre-independence India in the erstwhile Nizam’s estate (Hyderabad), Daughter of Dr. Burgula Rama Krishna Rao, statesman and the first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh; Ms. Sumana taught Social Science at the Atomic Energy Central School, Hyderabad for 30 years. Retired in 1998, Ms. Sumana moved to her native village and since then has been tirelessly helping poor communities of her village lead better lives.

A VisionSpring Champion, Ms. Sumana helped VisionSpring’s Vision Entrepreneurs’ conduct eye camps in her village on many occasions. According to Ms. Sumana, an understanding of human nature and society is essential for organic development and the well being of society. A firm believer of ‘Work is Worship’ and ‘Service to Humanity is Service to God’, she believes in the concept of a pluralistic society with equal emphasis to human values.

Dr. Alok Agarwal, a leading Nephrologist based out of USA and Ms. Sumana’s former student says that his teacher has been his greatest inspiration and takes pride in being able to provide financial assistance to a Public School in Ms. Sumana’s native village.

Inspired by learning about VisionSpring’s work in Burgula village during his recent visit to her, Dr. Agarwal requested VisionSpring Vision Entrepreneurs to conduct an eye camp in August, 2010 to coincide with the opening ceremony of an auditorium donated by him for the for the local Self Help Group (SHG). Ms. Sumana made door-to-door visits and encouraged the villagers, especially women, to participate in the camp.

VisionSpring Vision Entrepreneurs’ screened 190 women and men and sold 106 eye glasses. During the camp, Dr. Agarwal actively participated and provided part financial support for purchase of eye glasses to the needy people.

Thanks to the support of Ms. Sumana, VisionSpring conducted 4 eye camps in Burgula village in last two years, screened 560 people, sold 230 eye glasses and helped 60 cataract patients get operated at the Lions Eye Hospital in Mahabubnagar city.

A person like Ms. Sumana in every village can do wonders by taking VisionSpring’s message to her neighbors and helping them achieve their goals. Apart from being encouraging and inspiring, the efforts of individuals like Ms. Sumana will help VisionSpring create a Factorial Effect* in impacting the lives of many.

To read more stories like this, visit our Stories from the Field page or Donate now to help VisionSpring to reach more villages like Ms. Sumana’s.

*In mathematics, the Factorial of a positive integer n, denoted by n! is the product of all positive integers less than or equal to n. For example, 5! = 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1

On September 16th, VisionSpring and its Board of Directors will host a conversation with Fareed Zakaria, TIME Magazine’s Editor-at-Large and host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS.

Following an informal breakfast, Time Warner CEO, Jeff Bewkes will offer opening remarks and provide framework to the program, “Business Solutions for the Base of the Pyramid.” Dr. Zakaria will discuss the lack of effective products and services to address social problems in the developing world and explore new solutions to meet the pressing needs of the poor. He and VisionSpring Founder & CEO, Dr. Jordan Kassalow, will examine the unique aspects of social business and its impact at the Base of the Pyramid.

In addition to his work with Newsweek International and CNN, Fareed Zakaria is a New York Times bestselling author. He was described by Esquire Magazine as “the most influential foreign policy adviser of his generation” and in 2007, Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines named him one of the 100 leading public intellectuals in the world.

This event is by invitation only.

To inquire about the event, please contact Kelly R. Ricculli at kricculli@visionspring.org

Based in New Delhi, Mr. Marjara will be responsible for leading VisionSpring’s team in India and collaborating with our partner, BRAC, in Bangladesh. Mr. Marjara will be instrumental in helping to drive VisionSpring’s success as it works to reduce poverty and generate opportunity in the developing world through the sale of affordable eyeglasses.

Mr. Marjara brings nearly 15 years of diverse professional experience in social marketing, behavior change communication, research and Information Technology. He joins VisionSpring from Marie Stopes International (MSI), a world leader in providing family planning service, where he worked with the global marketing team to increase access and demand for family planning products and services through the use of technology. Before his work with MSI, Mr. Marjara worked with the National AIDS Control Organization, within the Indian Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. In this capacity, he formed and directed an autonomous unit which provided strategic guidance to the Indian Government’s integrated condom marketing programs across much of India.

Mr. Marjara has also worked with Population Services International (PSI) in India including leading PSI’s successful Avahan Project supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The author of numerous research papers utilizing his social marketing expertise, Mr. Marjara began his career as an IT professional developing software programs, which included a two year assignment in the Czech Republic.

Pritpal will officially join the VisionSpring office in New Delhi on September 15th. The VisionSpring global team is delighted to welcome Pritpal on board. Welcome, Pritpal!

Norris and VisionSpring customers in India

VisionSpring sent Leah Norris, undergraduate student at Bard College, to India to gather stories and insights from our customers, Vision Entrepreneurs and staff. In the following post, Norris reflects on hospitality, dignity and her changing perspective in India.

Though I had traveled before, I had never been traveling with a purpose like I was when VisionSpring sent me off to Hyderabad, India.  I sat on tiny planes, crowded overnight trains, cars battered by the chaotic and threatening traffic, buses that broke down amongst empty fields, and fragile rickshaws to get from village to village, interviewing customers and employees of the company.  One man who was previously making a dangerously low income proudly showed me the house that he had built for his family since he began working as a Vision Entrepreneur. It was the single solid cement house in the area, surrounded by semi-temporary shacks that demonstrated the incredible contrast between his former life and the new one he had been given the opportunity to make. Another man, a weaver whose efficiency was doubled by the pair of glasses that VisonSpring made available to him, spent a full day’s wages buying my coworkers and me sodas in overflowing appreciation and hospitality. This kind of gratitude was extraordinarily hard for me to accept – I wanted nothing more than to run back and give him a thousand sodas in return- but the feeling of independence that he could now afford and express by welcoming us into his home was something he had fought for.

Throughout, I was inspired by the way that motivated individuals in challenging circumstances prioritize. The man with the cement house focused on making his family secure and comfortable, and feeling like he had accomplished something significant. The man with the sodas focused on his ability to interact with warm reciprocity, something that should be a human right, should we choose to exercise it. I met a father who still had not bought himself a cot to sleep on with his VisonSpring income for the sake of sending his son to the best possible school. What these people did when given the possibility for financial empowerment was a striking testament to this impressionable undergrad, teetering on the brink of cynicism. I saw a lot of terrible, frustrating things in India, but I also saw startlingly bright colors, a textured and poignant culture, and the reason that it is vital to give people a chance to create something for themselves. Even a simple pair of eyeglasses can be the spark that ignites the momentum.

In peri-urban areas of Latin America, it is common practice for companies large and small to advertise by recording musically-backed, catchy commercials. A hired driver cruises key parts of the city over the course of a day, as the recording booms from the car’s sound system. One VE setting up a campaign at a church in Santa Ana created a similar recording to advertise his efforts.

Listen to the VE’s announcement:

VisionSpring El Salvador from elizabeth kaplan on Vimeo.

VisionSpring India partner, Villgro Fellow 2010, Jeanne Chen argued in a recent blog post that a gender gap exists in the adoption of technologies at the base of they pyramid. She suggested that according to her observations, VisionSpring’s customers are skewed in favor of men because women lack disposable income and find glasses aesthetically unappealing.

VisionSpring is grateful to our important partner, Villgro for working on our behalf and ensuring women and men adopt our products equally. It is through such partnerships that we continue to improve our operating model and spread our impact. We welcome the questions like those raised by Jeanne Chen so that we can continue to innovate both our products and services to better serve consumers at the Base of the Pyramid.

In her post, Chen asserts that social enterprises need to be conscientious of the gender gap in innovation adoption and evaluate the impact of their interventions to overcome this gap – we agree. VisionSpring trains our Vision Entrepreneurs to conduct screenings and provide eye care solutions to all genders. According to our sales records in India last year, VisionSpring customers were roughly 52% male and 48% female – only slightly in favor of men. Despite this statistic, Chen raises two critical issues for VisionSpring to consider.

First, Chen argues that women are less likely to wear glasses because they consider eyeglasses aesthetically unappealing. To address this, she recommends including women in the sourcing of glasses. As a market-driven organization, VisionSpring recognizes the importance of understanding the needs and desires of all intended users of our products, including women. We have learned that by listening to the consumer we have a higher adoption and usage rate of the product. For this reason, VisionSpring utilizes our Visions Entrepreneurs to gather feedback regarding frame styles and selection and the sales of our products reinforce what works for our customers. VisionSpring local staff collect this information and use it to make sourcing decisions. For example, VisionSpring created protector glasses, which are sunglasses with clear, UV protected lens, specifically to address the cultural preferences of some women to avoid shading their eyes. Though we are not perfect, like other consumer businesses, VisionSpring does its best to accommodate the widely varied tastes of our customers.

Second, Chen notes that women are less likely to have disposable income and economic means to purchase glasses. As she recommends, our Vision Entrepreneurs emphasize to customers the importance of preserving vision for economic productivity. Part of the challenge of selling this product is demonstrating to customers that purchasing reading glasses is an important investment for economic wellbeing of the family unit. One of our primary goals is to increase awareness about vision loss in the developing world and a large part of our outreach is done through vision campaigns in which our Vision Entrepreneurs not only screen vision loss, but also educate the general population about how restoring their vision can restore their productivity.

One customer in rural India, Shadna had been supporting her family for years after her husband died. As her vision deteriorated, she was unable to continue her work as a seamstress and had to labor in the fields earning too little to support her family. She tells VisionSpring, “I heard that a Vision Entrepreneur would be in my town, and even though I did not have money to spare, I went because the vision screening was free. I saw that the glasses they had were good quality, and I decided that they were worth the cost. I am back to my sewing now and making the same money as before. I am happy that I once again have a way to support my children.”

Stories like Shadna’s reinforce the power of awareness of our services and of vision care to women and men in the community. We thank Jeanne Chen and Villgro for holding us accountable to ensuring women are able to adopt the important technologies they need. We look forward to strengthening our collaboration on behalf of all consumers at the Base of the Pyramid.

New Frame Display Case

In June 2010, Partner Manager Caroline Misan visited the VisionSpring office in Santa Ana to assist Country Director Heidy Serpas to achieve a more polished Vision Entrepreneur and give our customers a better experience. Due to the success of programs VisionSpring is piloting in El Salvador, the Santa Ana office has enjoyed much more business – and given Heidy the opportunity to take the next step in the development of the program by building out the professionalism of the office and Vision Entrepreneurs. These improvements set the stage for continued growth of the operations and eventual replication in other cities in El Salvador and across Latin America.

Heidy and Caroline installed a display case for the frames (shown above) so customers are now able to clearly see all of the attractive options. The office was painted and a custom sign with VisionSpring’s logo was erected on the street to reassure customers of VisionSpring’s legitimacy and serve as a visual presence in the neighborhood. Then came the challenge: answering the Vision Entrepreneur’s call for VisionSpring to provide them more with professional support while balancing the organizational need to continue to recover costs from the location.

The team developed a plan to revise operations of the office to support the most committed Vision Entrepreneurs and incentivize the part-timers to do their part in making the program more successful. Now, the Vision Entrepreneurs will be asked to increase the number of campaigns held and meet a small minimum sales goal; if they meet these targets, they will earn an extra $50 per month. Caroline and the El Salvador team developed marketing materials and business cards for the Vision Entrepreneurs to allow the VEs more time for face-to-face outreach. Heidy also hired two loyal and talented Vision Entrepreneurs to support her in daily operations.

The opportunity to invest in the consumer experience for our Santa Ana customers signifies the deepening of our presence in El Salvador. These improvements respond to the overwhelming response from the communities as well as the commitment of VisionSpring staff and the Vision Entrepreneurs.

See photos of the Santa Ana office renovations by visiting our Facebook page!

The first-of-its-kind study commissioned by AMD Alliance International estimates that the global economic cost of visual impairment is estimated at a staggering US$2,954 billion in 2010 for the 733 million people living with low vision and blindness worldwide in 2010. Even more importantly, these costs are set to rise dramatically through to 2020 unless effective prevention and treatment strategies are adopted worldwide. This global cost includes direct health care cost expenditure, lost productivity and informal caregiver time.

The findings of the report emphasize the need to elevate vision as a global health and economic development issue. According to their estimates, more than half of all sight-loss globally occurs due to uncorrected refractive error, which is treatable with basic pairs of reading and/or distance lenses.

Recommendations

The study advances five recommendations to reduce the global burden of visual impairment, which emphasize broadening availability of affordable eye ware to correct refractive error. Additional recommendations include availability of cataract screenings and surgery in developing regions, funding and treatment of river blindness, increased glaucoma screenings for at-risk populations including seniors and those with diabetes.

Each of these recommendations, however, rests on an existing vision care infrastructure of each region, highlighting the critical importance of the availability of first-line vision care. In end of the road communities where VisionSpring operates, accessing vision care can require a full day trip to a city clinic – costing individuals a full day’s wages and travel expenses. By bringing vision care to these communities, VisionSpring hopes to be part of the larger process of developing the infrastructure of vision care systems in the developing world.

Awareness

One comment we repeatedly hear from new customers is that they had no idea that correcting their blurry up-close vision (or the headaches, neck strains and slow productivity caused by it) could be so easy and inexpensive. Had they been aware of the benefits relative to the cost, they might have resolved their vision problems years prior. For years, our Vision Entrepreneurs have referred customers whose vision required further attention to an optometrist or eye hospital – opening the door for a customer to feel empowered to treat vision issues he was once resigned to living with. Further, seeking the solution to age-onset blurry vision can lead to the discovery of a greater vision concerns such as cataracts, that while unable to treat patients directly, our Vision Entrepreneurs can help to diagnose and assist patients in locating treatment. Raising awareness of the treatment options available to those suffering with vision problems is a critical component of addressing these global costs – an issue our Vision Entrepreneurs tackle every day.

About AMDAI

AMD (Age Related Macular Degeneration) Alliance International is the only international organization in the world dedicated exclusively to promoting awareness, treatment and research into macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss in the developed world. It is a membership organization comprised of the worlds’ leading vision, seniors and research organizations from 25 countries.

The AMD Alliance International study and executive summary are available here.

The CBS Evening News team traveled to Rajasthan to learn the moving story of Ranju Sharma, whose work as a Vision Entrepreneur was so well respected that she was the first woman ever nominated to run for village chief.

Watch our powerful three minute CBS Evening News segment, “Eyesight for Sore Eyes”!

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