VisionSpring

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VisionSpring Award-winning social enterprise providing affordable, durable, attractive eyeglasses for earners & learners everywhere.

09/25/2026

💊 This World Pharmacy Week, we're celebrating partners like Toyin Amoo, CEO of Litoma Pharmacy in Nigeria.

Toyin built a new revenue stream for her business through eye screening and selling near-vision glasses to her customers.

For most people across our markets, are the first point of contact with healthcare, making them a natural place to reach people with near vision needs. Through , pharmacies like Toyin's across Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Ghana are trained to screen for presbyopia, turning routine visits into a source of income and clearer sight.

"When presbyopia awareness meets access to reading glasses, clear vision changes lives," says Abiola Joseph, Global Manager, Pharmacy Program. "Pharmacies have the power to bring reading glasses closer to communities and help solve one of the world's largest unmet vision needs."

👓 By integrating vision screening and reading glasses into existing pharmacy programs, we help reach the communities they serve, while helping people maintain their livelihoods and dignity.

Interested in partnering? Reach out to [email protected].

🎥 See how Toyin now screens for presbyopia.

09/16/2026

🫱🏼‍🫲🏾 "At VisionSpring, we often think about the word beneficiary as being a bad word," says our CEO, Ella Gudwin. "We prefer the word customer."

It's a distinction VisionSpring's founder Dr. Jordan Kassalow feels deeply. "With a beneficiary, there's a power dynamic that's unequal," he explains. "We're the givers, they're the receivers. With a customer, the keyword is partner."

That's why VisionSpring asks people to pay something for their glasses, even a small amount. When someone spends their limited resources on a product, they're telling us it has real value to them, and the choice, and the power, stays in their hands.

For 25 years, this principle has shaped how we build access programmes worldwide. Dignity isn't an add-on to our work, it's the model.

🎥 Watch the full conversation between Dr. Kassalow and Ella Gudwin about the power of language, and why the word "customer" changes everything.

See well. Do well.

Last month, VisionSpring Bangladesh hosted a delegation from Last Mile Health, including Dr. Netsanet Fetene, Anley Dess...
09/09/2026

Last month, VisionSpring Bangladesh hosted a delegation from Last Mile Health, including Dr. Netsanet Fetene, Anley Dessie Syoum and Kalkidan Damtew Zewdu.

The visit gave them a firsthand look at our community screenings and mobilisation efforts, through CatalEYES™, our partnership programme that helps other organisations integrate vision screening and reading glasses into their own work.

The team was especially excited about the multifaceted outreach conducted by community health workers, driving patient awareness and interest through door-to-door visits, invitation cards, and microphone announcements.

Layered together, these approaches brought women to our screenings at rates that impressed our visitors, who are working to advance gender parity in access to health services.

09/04/2026

During his first semester of optometry training VisionSpring’s founder, Dr. Jordan Kassalow, took a trip to Mexico that would shape his life.

A 7-year-old boy, whose parents believed he was blind, put on the glasses Dr. Kassalow prescribed. Suddenly, he could see his parents, and the world, clearly for the first time.

“I gave him his first pair of glasses,” remembers Dr. Kassalow. “He gave me my life’s purpose.”

For 25 years, we've built access programmes that meet people where they work, live, and study. We are committed to closing the clear vision gap, so that the 1 billion people who need glasses have them. In our lifetime.

🎥 Enjoy the conversation between Dr. Kassalow and our CEO, Ella Gudwin, about how one child sparked a global mission.

See well. Do well.

🗣️ Next week, our Chief Impact Officer, Anne Coolen, and Managing Director of VisionSpring Bangladesh, Misha Mahjabeen, ...
08/28/2026

🗣️ Next week, our Chief Impact Officer, Anne Coolen, and Managing Director of VisionSpring Bangladesh, Misha Mahjabeen, are headed to Geneva for the World Health Organization (WHO)'s meeting.

They'll join Ministries of Health, UN agencies, and vision health leaders from around the world.

🌍 Find them at the second in-person meeting of the Global SPECS Network, 2-3 September, at WHO Headquarters. SPECS 2030 is the WHO's push to close the gap in eyeglasses access and cataract surgery, two of the most common, most treatable causes of vision loss.

Sessions will cover progress across SPECS 2030 countries, the Network's new advocacy framework, and what it will take to hit two ambitious 2030 targets: a 40 percentage point increase in refractive error coverage, and a 30 percentage point increase in cataract surgical coverage.

📩 If you'll be there too, we'd love to connect! Comment below or reach out to [email protected].

08/26/2026

🏔️ Our founder, Dr. Jordan Kassalow, was 23 when he reached the summit of an Alaskan mountain – rain pouring, wind so strong he could barely stand.

“The universe was conspiring to tell me that I was nothing,” he remembers. “I screamed at the wind that I was going to matter, no matter what.”

That was the moment he decided to spend his life working toward something larger than himself.

💜 That decision eventually became VisionSpring. Born out of the simple, yet ambitious belief that nobody should live without the eyeglasses they need.

To celebrate our 25th anniversary, we're sharing a conversation between Dr. Kassalow and our CEO, Ella Gudwin, about the moment the seed for VisionSpring was first planted in Jordan's mind.

It took us nearly 25 years to reach 16.7 million people. In our next chapter, we’re committed to reaching 20 million in just 5 years.

That’s the next step to closing the vision gap. In our lifetime.

🎥 Watch the video to learn more about Dr. Kassalow’s ‘eureka!’ moment.

See well. Do well.

Let's meet at tomorrow onward in New Delhi!We'll be at the Global Conference 2026, Asia's largest gathering of social...
08/24/2026

Let's meet at tomorrow onward in New Delhi!

We'll be at the Global Conference 2026, Asia's largest gathering of social investors and impact leaders, hosted at Bharat Mandapam. Join Nafis Islam, Vice-President Resource Mobilision, and Anshu Taneja, Managing Director VisionSpring Foundation, alongside 2,000+ global delegates and 100+ expert sessions shaping scalable pathways for inclusive growth.

We're looking forward to engaging with funders, policymakers, and changemakers to exchange ideas, explore collaborations, and showcase how eyeglasses can unlock opportunities for learning, livelihoods, and safety for everyone who needs them.

📩 If you're attending AVPN week, we'd love to connect! Drop us a comment or reach out to [email protected] to schedule a meeting.

See you in New Delhi!

25–27 August 2026 | Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi

08/20/2026

✉️ You've got...glasses?

In Assam, India, we're testing whether India's postal network can double as a delivery system for eyeglasses.

🫱🏼‍🫲🏾 NPR recently covered our partnership with India Post, World Health Organization (WHO), and Sri Sankardeva Nethralaya to bring free eye tests and reading glasses right into post offices. The team—trained through CatalEYES™—watches for customers squinting at their letters or forms and offers a quick sight test on the spot. If needed, they leave with their packages—and a new pair of reading glasses.

So far, 80% of the 5,000+ people screened across five post offices were first-time wearers, a sign there was almost no eye care reaching these communities before.

This pilot supports WHO's SPECS 2030 initiative, which aims to raise global refractive error coverage by 40 percentage points by 2030. It proves that embedding eye care into infrastructure communities already trust and use is essential to reaching scale. It's replicable. Any organization or sector with existing reach can apply this approach.

Interested in implementing this model? Reach out to [email protected]

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Our Q2 Report is out! 🎉 Twenty-five years in, same urgency as day one, more to build on than ever.This year, we've scree...
08/18/2026

Our Q2 Report is out! 🎉 Twenty-five years in, same urgency as day one, more to build on than ever.

This year, we've screened 2.6 million peoples' vision and helped 1.9 million people see clearly.

A few highlights:

📊 PROSPER II is published! We've got the receipts--correcting vision boosts factory worker productivity by 6%, translating to a $27 billion opportunity for the global garment and apparel industries.

🚀 We launched CatalEYES™ at VISION 2020/IAPB's IN SIGHT LIVE 2030, advancing our shift from doers to enablers. We built the playbook. Now we're teaching networks communities already trust how to screen and dispense reading glasses on the spot.

✉️ With the World Health Organization (WHO), India Post, and Sri Sankaradeva Nethralaya, we're testing whether reading glasses can be as easy to get as mailing a letter, part of WHO's SPECS 2030 strategy to raise global refractive error coverage by 40 percentage points by 2030.

👓 We also refreshed our product lines with the dignity of choice in mind. New glasses in India and Bangladesh reflect local styles and face shapes, including our most affordable reader ever in India, and our first children's collection in Bangladesh.

🫱🏼‍🫲🏾 None of this happens alone. Twenty-five years in, we are more optimistic than ever that we will close the global vision gap together. In our lifetime.

🎉 This year, we celebrate 25 years! In 2001, we began with a simple but ambitious belief: that eyeglasses should be wit...
08/13/2026

🎉 This year, we celebrate 25 years!

In 2001, we began with a simple but ambitious belief: that eyeglasses should be within reach for everyone who needs them.

Our programs and partners have enabled millions of people across dozens of countries to experience the life-changing power of clear vision — helping them earn, learn, stay safe, and live fully with dignity.

Now, we’re looking ahead to the next 25 years. 1 billion people globally still live with uncorrected blurry vision. No one organization can reach them alone. But together, we can solve this problem. In our lifetime.

Here's what excites us most about this pivotal moment:

🔄 Through CatalEYES, we're shifting from do-ers to enablers. We’ve translated our 25 years of experience into training and technical assistance models to help organisations and governments deliver vision care to the communities they serve.

🎯 As we mark 25 years, we will reach 20 million people with the eyeglasses they need. Now we're accelerating to reach 20 million more in the next 5 years. That's doubling our impact in one-fifth of the time.

🗺️ How will we do it? We've launched our 2026–2030 strategy centered around three bold ‘Big Bets’ — Working through partners and governments, shaping markets and ecosystems, is our clearest path to collectively closing the global clear vision gap in our lifetime.

As we enter a new phase of growth and innovation, stay tuned for more details of what lies ahead for VisionSpring, our partners, and the sector. To get involved, visit www.visionspring.org.

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