Our Impact
An economic multiplier that costs under $1 to manufacture.
The return on a pair of reading glasses compounds — for the individual, for local economies and for the broader community.
Solving near-vision loss is one of the highest-return yet most overlooked opportunities in philanthropy today.
Marta’s Story
A merchant from the Sidama Region in southern Ethiopia, Marta’s worsening near vision directly affected her daily tasks at her photocopy shop.
"I couldn't see clearly...The letters were blurry and difficult to distinguish. Sometimes I mixed up papers with similar content. I was afraid of going bankrupt because of the mistakes I was making."
The impact to Marta's life and well-being were immediate when community health workers in her village tested her vision, and she was given a free pair of reading glasses.
With her near-vision restored, Marta could once again run her business accurately and independently. "Because of my vision problems, my self-confidence in my work was down. But now, thanks to this organization, I have started to have confidence in myself."
A simple pair of reading glasses can restore livelihoods and incomes.
Left uncorrected, near-vision loss quietly takes the income, dignity, and agency of working-age adults. Vision Action Fund is working to make reading glasses a routine, self-sustaining part of life in low- and middle-income countries — restoring vision, income, and wellbeing without ongoing reliance on philanthropy.
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Tea pickers
In India, 1.2M people spend their days picking tea leaves for a living. Tea pickers need to carefully pick the top two leaves and bud from each stem. These workers can lose ~5 kilograms of harvest per day simply because they can’t see clearly. But a recent study demonstrated that reading glasses increased productivity by 22% on average among tea pickers in India.
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Tailors
Bangladesh is the world’s second largest garment exporter, employing over 4M workers, predominantly women. The work requires exacting near-vision tasks: threading needles, stitching seams and trimming threads. Female garment workers with near-vision impairment earn $13.30 less per month than those without.
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Smallholder farmers
There are 500M smallholder farming households globally, most living on less than $2/day. They not only need to see their crops, but read their phones to coordinate with buyers at the local market. Uncorrected near-vision loss has direct impacts on their productivity and household income. In a study of coffee harvesters from Guatemala, a pair of reading glasses lifted worker productivity by ~8%.
How we test our theory of change.
Measurement, evaluation, and learning are critical to tracking our progress on closing the near-vision gap. We rely on partner dashboards and narrative reports, randomized controlled trials, behavioral research, and long-term consumer studies to keep us on track.