Robert Martin's Open Salon Blog

How to Conquer the Cause

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:01:19 -0500

A Totally Unique New Approach to Winning the War on Illiteracy and Poverty

Despite these difficult times, two socio-economic conditions absolutely seem to be thriving: illiteracy and poverty!

Globally, at least a billion adults cannot read a book or sign their names. Of the estimated 3½ to 4 billion people who live in poverty, the World Bank calculates that over 2.8 BILLION people subsist on less than $2 a day. Despite the best intentions and countless humanitarian efforts over scores of years and many billions of dollars spent for pencils, books, computers, teachers, doctors, nurses, vaccines, vitamins, medicines, seeds, food, engineers, well-drilling equipment and water pumps to solve humankind’s worst problems, the number of impoverished people is actually increasing! Why?

The “bottom-line” solution for illiteracy is education. Over time, improved and better education leads to economic improvement and a reduction in poverty. Good education “teaches people to fish so they can feed themselves for a lifetime” versus “giving people a fish and only feeding them for a day.” And while education in developed countries most often means educating children, among impoverished populations, the lack of, and need for, education cuts across all age ranges.

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” That could describe the majority of programs launched to overcome illiteracy and poverty. Over the years, efforts to supply everything presumed necessary to improve these conditions has been provided, yet little substantive change has actually occurred. Is there some other basic need or root cause that’s being overlooked or ignored?

In considering the human requirements necessary for successful learning to occur it is logical to wonder whether some human condition or deficiency is at fault? One fundamental requisite for learning and literacy is vision…the ability to SEE! Humankind’s most prevalent learning disability IS poor eyesight. All the writing paper, pencils, books, and computers in the world are useless when people cannot SEE properly to USE them! But how serious a problem is poor vision? Can poor vision be “THE” problem?

The most common kind of poor eyesight or vision impairment is called refractive error, and it includes nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism and presbyopia. Refractive error is easily remedied with eyeglasses. It is estimated that refractive errors comprise 93% of all vision impairments. That means that all other – often more medically serious – vision impairments combined (cataracts, corneal injury and disease, glaucoma, macular degeneration, trachoma, river blindness and others) constitute just 7% of all other vision problems! But how many people have refractive error, and perhaps more significantly, how many people have uncorrected refractive error?

In attempting to evaluate the scope and size of the refractive error affliction, it became clear that NO consistent standards define what degree of visual debility is considered “deficient!” Attempts to enumerate people with refractive error have used varied, inconsistent arrays of methods: the severity of vision problems, the amount of refractive error, the degree to which the afflicted are "impaired," their ability or inability to read, work, or perform tasks, their ages, the regions of the world in which they live, ad infinitum. Researchers who categorize/quantify people with "uncorrected refractive error" presumably mean people who have no access to and/or who cannot afford eyeglasses.

In February 2008, using the kinds of variable studies cited above, the World Health Organization wrote: “A total of 153 million people (range of uncertainty: 123 million to 184 million) are estimated to be visually impaired from uncorrected refractive errors.” In a world of nearly 6.8 billion people, that represents only 2% of the world’s population. Two percent certainly does NOT make uncorrected refractive error appear to be a very big problem…assuming those numbers are correct.

Another, different basis of quantification, however, can be applied that is clearer and more straightforward and logical: Does wearing corrective lenses of any kind improve the vision of the afflicted person? In the United States, the percentage of people of all ages for whom eyeglasses improve vision is well documented by the optical industry itself and ranges between 60% and 65%. The U.S. population generally does not experience the extremes of poverty, malnutrition, cooking smoke, bright tropical sunlight, unsanitary conditions, non-existent medical attention and other factors that contribute to increased vision impairment in many countries. Therefore, a conservative, fair and reasonable basis for determining global corrective vision needs can be best attained statistically by using the U.S. variable percentages of incidence for each age group since refractive error universally increases with age. When those percentages are applied to the population of each country, the world’s population with both corrected and uncorrected refractive error – and irrespective of their economic circumstances – exceeds four billion people.

The approximate percentages of each age group globally afflicted by refractive error are:

· 27.4% of world population is under age 15 – with fewer than 10% having refractive error

· 65.0% of world population ages 15 – 65 – with 60% needing corrective lenses

· 7.6% of world population over age 65 – with at least 95% needing or wearing eyeglasses to function well

To compile estimates of how many people globally have uncorrected refractive error, the population estimates of every country were aggregated, the number of people with refractive error in each of the three age ranges within that population were calculated, the above percentages were applied, and then the variable statistical averages for the percentages of people living below poverty levels based upon a reverse proportion to GDP (Gross Domestic Product). This amounted to at least 2.029 BILLION people who have uncorrected refractive error based on statistical probability and their poverty levels.

These numbers far exceed – by twelve times (12X) – those published by the World Health Organization. Even when these figures are reduced by half, they are still 600% higher than those of the WHO! These numbers would seem to support the contention that refractive error – the world’s easiest-to-remedy vision impairment and one of the world’s easiest to remedy afflictions of any kind – is the predominant affliction handicapping the greatest number of people. Refractive error is NOT, then, an unsolvable problem. The major issue becomes: How do you screen the vision of 2.029 BILLION people with uncorrected refractive error – nearly one-third Earth’s population – and then provide them with eyeglasses? Is it even possible to correct refractive error on such a scale?

People in developed countries take for granted their easy access to eye doctors and vision screening and the ubiquitous availability of eyeglasses. The expertise, investment, technology and equipment necessary to thoroughly examine a person’s vision and subsequently make each pair of eyeglasses, however, is substantial for both the provider and for the patient. Since, however, refractive error comprises 93% of all vision impairments, in impoverished countries it logically would initially be less complex and more economical to only screen-for-and-correct refractive error and not all other vision impairments. That would provide the fastest, most necessary help for the greatest number of people with the most common problem.

In the past, most charitable efforts to provide eyeglasses to the poor have been imprecise, tediously slow, short-duration “mission” projects. This was, in part, because no fast, accurate, cost-effective, long-term solution was available. Those projects usually attempted to manufacture inexpensive prescription eyeglasses “on-site” – a costly, time and materiel intensive process – or they brought-along large quantities of used eyeglasses in average prescription strengths and did the best they could sorting through boxes pair-by-pair to find the best available prescription they had. Both processes were logistically challenging and had their own unique drawbacks…but they DID help some people.

That was precisely the situation Englishman Dennis Gunst encountered when he began volunteering in charitable vision screening clinics in 1963. Mr. Gunst was a successful inventor in the early days of electronics engineering. He had emigrated from post-war Britain to California in the late 1940’s. He became a sound engineer in Hollywood, invented several devices for the film-making and television industries, sold his companies and retired at age 38. He learned Spanish and joined the Flying Samaritans, a group dedicated to providing medical care to the needy in Lower California and Mexico. Soon he was coordinating one of their eye clinics and in demand as a teacher. His motivating belief was that good eyesight was vital to overcoming illiteracy.

Mr. Gunst spent his subsequent decades working – unpaid – in hundreds of charity clinics. In 1988, an idea occurred to him while he was sitting on the floor of a small clinic in Mexicali, Mexico rummaging through yet another box of used eyeglasses searching for a pair to help a patient. He wondered if a computer could somehow keep track of all the eyeglasses to make the selection process faster and more accurate. Assisting Mr. Gunst that day was Linda Figueroa, a Mexican woman, and her very bright 18 year old son Martin. When Mr. Gunst asked Martin “Would you like to learn how to program a computer?” Martin’s enthusiastic answer was “Si!”

Those were the “early days” of computers and, like many other people in those days, Mr. Gunst had taught himself the Microsoft DOS computer programming language. Already an expert on eyeglasses technology and vision prescriptions, his task was to combine those two areas of expertise and, with Mr. Figueroa as his apprentice, try to develop a computer program. It took them nearly ten years.

The end result was elegant and simple. It enabled easily-trained workers – no medical professionals were required – to operate a clinic and screen patient’s vision, determine their prescription and then very accurately dispense used eyeglasses – exclusively – to fill those prescriptions. The entire process took only about three (3) minutes per patient!

Mr. Gunst believed that a large inventory of used eyeglasses in a clinic could sufficiently provide for most the variables in patient prescription eyeglasses needs, and his computer program basically data-based enormous quantities of used eyeglasses by their prescriptions and other distinctive characteristics (Eg. clear or dark lenses, large or small lenses and frames, women’s or unisex frame styles, good, fair or poor frame condition, etc.).

Mr. Gunst’s computer program employed mathematical algorithms and used weighted errors to determine which pair of eyeglasses would provide the closest match for the patient’s prescription. In order to determine the speed and accuracy of the new program Mr. Gunst went to the Southern California College of Optometry to test it. The results were reported in the 2001-2002 winter newsletter of VOSH/INTERNATIONAL (VOSH-Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity): “…for their dissertation, two students (from the college) were enlisted to test the computer program against three members of the faculty. The computer and staff were given a random bunch of prescriptions to fill and were also given a random bunch of glasses prescriptions. Their task was to choose the best glasses for each patient. The computer was as good as the members of the faculty and happened to be the least divergent of all.”

To determine the prescriptions of the used eyeglasses and to eliminate prescription data input (human) errors, Mr. Gunst attached an electronic Lensometer directly to a computer. A Lensometer “reads” the prescription information from each lens in a pair of glasses then, in this case, electronically exports that information into the computer. The computer then “remembers” those identifying characteristics and assigns a specific storage location for each pair of glasses in the warehouse. There they await a patient who needs that particular pair of eyeglasses.

At the same time Mr. Gunst and Mr. Figueroa were developing their computer program, another electronic device called an Autorefractor was becoming more and more reliable and accurate. In a fraction of a second, an Autorefractor can photograph the inside of a person’s eyeball to determine any refractive errors. The information it instantly calculates and provides IS an eyeglasses prescription. Autorefractor-determined prescriptions were becoming – and have since become – as accurate as prescriptions determined during a 30-60 minute optometric or ophthalmic examination. An “Autorefractor-only” examination, however, is not as comprehensive with respect to total eye health and eye care, but Mr. Gunst’s intentions were primarily to address and remedy the most prevalent vision problem, refractive error, and make the eyeglasses selection process faster and easier for the clinic workers (like himself!) and much more accurate for the patient. An easily trained person using an Autorefractor can determine the vision prescriptions of 30-40 people in an hour.

In the late 1990’s, Mr. Gunst spent 2 years in Mexico City working in collaboration with Devlyn Optical, Mexico’s largest optical company, the Mexican Red Cross and Rotary Clubs to establish a charity clinic there using his program. The resulting Gift of Good Vision Clinic was a smashing success. It has since provided eyeglasses to tens of thousands of indigent people.

In 2001, Dr. John Todd, a physician and retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral telephoned Robert Martin to ask him if his non-profit organization wanted the five or six thousand pairs of used eyeglasses in deteriorating boxes stacked in a barn in Frederick County Maryland. Dr. Todd had sold the property and was moving. Although Mr. Martin said “Yes,” he did so with no plan and only a vague idea of not wasting a resource that could possibly be re-donated to another charitable organization.

In 1994, Mr. Martin had co-founded and became executive director of the Tree-Land Foundation, Inc., a conservation and environmental education not-for-profit organization. The Foundation owned undeveloped property near the Appalachian Trail in Maryland that was made freely available to groups like Scouts for conservation, reforestation and nature-oriented projects. Mr. Martin, along with his co-founder Charles Klein, had also journeyed dozens of times throughout the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico and shared a decades-long interest in Mayan anthropology and archaeology. Through Tree-Land Foundation, they also organized and led numerous Scout youth, college student and adult excursions to live and do conservation and community service work in Mayan villages among the indigenous people.

In late 2002, Mr. Martin learned about a charity clinic in Mexico City that needed used eyeglasses and traveled there to investigate possibly donating the eyeglasses Tree-Land Foundation had to it. At the central Mexico City clinic, Mr. Martin’s host, Frank Devlyn asked, “Do you know how we give people eyeglasses here?” Mr. Martin did not. “Take off your glasses and sit down in front of this machine,” he was told.

“Put your chin in the cup” Mr. Devlyn said as light from the machine blinked into Mr. Martin’s eyes. “This machine is called an Autorefractor.” It produced a slip of paper that Mr. Devlyn removed. “Follow me,” he said as they walked through a warehouse with hundreds of labeled cardboard boxes on shelves.

In the back, the six numbers on the slip of paper were typed into a computer. It printed out another receipt which Mr. Devlyn took into a maze of shelves. He reached into the numbered box the computer had indicated and pulled out a plastic bag with a pair of eyeglasses in it. “Try these on,” Mr. Devlyn said. “How well can you see?”

Mr. Martin peered around the warehouse. Everything looked clear. He gazed toward the front of the clinic and out the window at the buildings across the street. They looked clear, too. Mr. Devlyn handed him a card and said “Can you read this?” He could, and he said so. “Those are used eyeglasses,” Mr. Devlyn said.

“But these are MY prescription. How did you do that?” Mr. Martin asked?

“We use a special computer program that data-bases the used eyeglasses by prescription. The Autorefractor gave us your prescription. The computer knew we had what you needed and told us which box it was in.”

“Where else is this program being used?” Mr. Martin asked.

Mr. Devlyn’s answer was “Nowhere.”

Mr. Martin was astounded by the clinic’s simplicity and seemingly magical capabilities. He returned to the clinic several times and watched as grateful people got their first-ever “new” eyeglasses…but who then couldn’t read the eye chart because of their tear-filled eyes! Later, Mr. Devlyn generously agreed to Mr. Martin’s request that he be allowed to use the computer program to open a similar clinic in Yucatán and use Tree-Land Foundation’s eyeglasses there instead of sending them to Mexico City.

Frank Devlyn made another strong recommendation to Mr. Martin…in addition to being co-owner and head of Central America’s largest optical company, Mr. Devlyn also was – along with his two brothers – a long-time member of a Rotary Club. In 2000-2001, Frank Devlyn had served and traveled around the world as the International President of the 1.2 million-member Rotary organization. Mr. Devlyn told Mr. Martin that Rotary’s motto “Service Above Self” exemplified his intentions, and he urged-and-sponsored Mr. Martin to become a Rotarian…which he subsequently did.

Mr. Martin had been an entrepreneur and retail business owner for twenty-five years. He reasoned that starting a clinic was much like starting a new store. He knew he’d need many more used eyeglasses uniformly packed to be easily shippable. He would need to warehouse and ship them…and deal with customs issues. He would need a clinic facility in Mexico with workers. There were many issues to deal with and decisions to be made. Over the ensuing three years Mr. Martin began the “Mayan Vision Projects” to establish a vision screening – eyeglasses providing clinic in Mérida, the capital city of Yucatán and:

· Joined and enlisted cooperation and grant assistance from the Rotary Club of Rockville (Maryland) and Rotary International to begin to establish the prospective clinic.

· Established close relations with, and also joined the Lions Club organization. Lions are the premier “collectors” of used eyeglasses donations in the U.S. and began provided thousands of used eyeglasses for the proposed Yucatan clinic. Mr. Gunst is also both a Rotarian and a Lion member.

· Created the community service “Old Glasses for New Eyes Program” in cooperation with the Frederick County (Maryland) Public Schools-sponsored job-and-life-skills SUCCESS training program for mentally and/or physically impaired 18-21 year old students. Since 2003, the students have spent several days each month sorting, counting and packing donated, used eyeglasses for shipping…and they had boxed over 300,000 pairs of glasses by 2009.

· Lived and worked with Dennis Gunst at his home/lab in Ensenda, Mexico in October 2004, and volunteering at a charity vision clinic in Tecate, Mexico with the Flying Samaritans. Mr. Gunst approved the plans of the Mayan Vision Projects and granted permission for his updated computer programs to be used and for collaborations with Martin Figueroa.

· Made numerous trips to Mérida to negotiate and establish a partner relationship with DIF Yucatán and work-out clinic establishment logistics. (DIF Yucatán is the acronym for Sistema para el Desarollo Integral de la Familia en Yucatán-the state government-run family health and social services agency.)

· Negotiated for DIF Yucatán to provide the clinic's "physical plant" facility, its renovations in Mérida, employees, utilities, Internet access, free transportation to-and-from the clinic for people from outlying pueblos, etc.

· Agreed to provide and deliver the eyeglasses inventory, the electronic equipment, the special computer program, and worker training.

· Gained the cooperation and collaboration of Rotary Clubs and Lions Clubs in Yucatán.

· Purchased and delivered electronic diagnostic and computer equipment for the clinic.

· Arranged warehousing and trucking for the glasses

· Discovered a customs broker "angel" in Hiram Cervera in Progreso, Yucatán.

· Negotiated arrangements with the Yucatán state and Mexican federal governments for the duty-free donation of 80,000 pairs of eyeglasses and clinic equipment.

· Worked with Radiance Shipping Company to "containerize" and ship the eyeglasses from Tampa, Florida to Progreso, Mexico.

· Designed the layout of the clinic facility.

· Brought Martin Figueroa to Mérida to install the electronics and train the clinic workers in November, 2006 and again in January, 2007.

On February 1, 2007, the Gran Inauguración of the Clínica de Salud Visual "Ver Bien para Vivir Mejor" (Grand Opening of the Clinic of Visual Health "See Well to Live Better") occurred. Included among the participants was the wife of Yucatán's governor Silvia Cicero de Patrón, officials and administrators from DIF Yucatán, the Yucatán government, and Devlyn Optical Company, Rotary Club members, many guests from other parts of Mexico including Linda and Martin Figueroa from Mexicali, Mexico and from the United States including the lead teacher and one of the students from Frederick County’s SUCCESS Program. Due to a serious and deteriorating health condition, Dennis Gunst was too ill to attend.

Today, the Mérida clinic provides free eyeglasses for about 2000 patients a month. Each week, DIF Yucatán brings patients to the clinic by bus from nearby villages. The clinic workers also travel with their equipment to more distant villages where they examine peoples’ eyesight and then later return with eyeglasses for everyone needing them. In addition, the government realized that the clinic provided them with a “screening platform,” and has subsequently initiated a screening protocol at the clinic to identify cataract patients and elsewhere provide them with free cataract surgery.

It was while planning the Mérida clinic that questions about the potential scope and size of refractive errors as a global problem were raised and began to be examined. Other organizations and governments were requesting consideration that the Mayan Vision Projects open other clinics.

Mr. Martin spent months researching and examining vision problem-related data. He wanted to satisfy his growing suspicion that Mr. Gunst’s approach had broader international applications, and to determine – if possible – its size.

Mr. Martin enlisted the expertise of geographer and Rotarian Robert Ketron, founder of the Gift of Sight Foundation, an expert in corneal injury and disease and international advocate for establishment of “eye banks.” It was Mr. Ketron’s ground-breaking analysis of every country’s population, poverty and impaired vision/refractive error statistics that led to the startling revelations of the grossly underestimated magnitude of refractive error as a primary causal factor of illiteracy and poverty.

Ultimately, the Mayan Vision Project name was changed to the GLOBAL re-VISION Network. This was done to reflect the newly-recognized, enormous international need indicated by Mr. Ketron’s research, the environmentally intelligent recycling approach Mr. Gunst had developed and to describe the interconnectedness of the many people and organizations vital to the clinic supply and establishment process.

After the Mérida clinic opened and awareness of its success became better and better known, Mr. Martin continued collecting and warehousing eyeglasses, and he began numerous speaking engagements to Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs and other organizations in the U.S. An important question arose regarding whether a sufficiently large, ongoing supply of used eyeglasses was available to supply the opening of many more new clinics. This question led Mr. Ketron to undertake additional research for the new GLOBAL re-VISION Network…with almost unbelievable results!

Mr. Ketron found that nearly two hundred million people in just the U. S. wear some kind of eyeglasses. Research showed that between fifty and seventy million new pairs of eyeglasses are sold each year. He estimated that if each eyeglasses-wearing person owns just two-or-three pairs of eyeglasses – old ones they don’t use anymore – there are at least five hundred million (500,000,000) pairs of used eyeglasses available for donation and recycling. Mr. Martin was skeptical the quantity could be so enormous until a member of his Rotary Club donated 19 pairs that had belonged to his recently deceased wife. Clearly, America, alone, could potentially supply enough used eyeglasses to help 25% of the world’s vision impaired poor. The question was: How to collect them?

Mr. Ketron’s best estimate of the number of used eyeglasses annually collected by Lions Clubs and other organizations was only between 1% and 2% of the available supply. In recent years and for many reasons, donations and collections had remained relatively small because there also were no compelling efforts or reason to increase them. There also had been no way to distribute more used eyeglasses than were being collected.

In 2008, the GLOBAL re-VISION Network was contacted by representatives involved with the U. S. Navy’s recently-initiated humanitarian programs. For many years, the Navy had transported emergency crisis and relief aid to many parts of the world following disasters. Now, the American government was quietly developing and tasking the Navy with initiating humanitarian health and human services efforts in “permissive environments,” i.e. places the Navy Program was invited and/or voluntarily present to provide aid to the disadvantaged people in those countries. One of the major goals of the Navy’s Global Maritime Partnership Program was to cooperate and collaborate with existing NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) programs. Because NGO’s were already providing some kinds of aid in foreign venues, the Navy wanted to explore ways to work with the NGO’s and not overlap by providing the same assistance to those countries. One of the idiosyncratic, government-imposed “conditions,” however, was that the Navy could not request anything from the N.G.O.’s…but they could accept, if they wished, whatever an N.G.O. might offer!

The Navy needed used eyeglasses for their 2009, “Mercy” ships deployment. Mr. Martin became aware of that need and tried to acquire a hundred thousand pairs of eyeglasses from Lions Eyeglasses Recycling Centers for them. Lions Center eyeglasses are “ready-to-dispense,” but in the same, old-time, slow manner that spurred Dennis Gunst to develop the system GLOBAL re-VISION now used. Due to time constraints, however, Mr. Martin was unsuccessful. The eyeglasses that GLOBAL re-VISION had in its warehouse needed to be processed – or classified – for use at the clinic – as they are in Mérida. Cleaning, sterilizing and determining the prescriptions of 100,000 eyeglasses and warehousing them were not ship-board tasks.

In further discussions with the Navy in late 2009, the GLOBAL re-VISION system was discussed in great detail. Mr. Martin explained the possibility of classifying the eyeglasses in the U.S. – perhaps employing physically and mentally impaired workers like the SUCCESS students – and bar coding the information onto bagged, boxed and ready-to-ship eyeglasses would enable a shipboard clinic, or a newly established clinic, to instantaneously “beep” used eyeglasses into their computerized inventories in the same way items are checked-out at a grocery store.Although the Navy could not “ask for” anything…their need and desire for such a capability and for such a program would certainly be accepted if offered.

The bar coding workshop/facility needs to be developed, Mr. Martin said, for the program to expand. Funding for that capability and also to expand the number of clinics becomes the major hurdle. Mr. Martin believes that the GLOBAL re-VISION Network will grow as awareness of refractive error’s true severity and negative impact on quality of life, of its connected, horrendous effect on perpetuating illiteracy and poverty, and of the simple solution that recycled eyeglasses offers the world become better known.

The GLOBAL re-VISION Network has developed an eyeglasses collecting and fund-raising program called SPEC$+BUCK$. The idea is for service organizations, schools, Scout groups and others to solicit donations of used eyeglasses plus a dollar wrapped around them. The eyeglasses would supply new clinics that the money helps establish. Donations can be sent to: SPEC$+BUCK$ - P.O.Box 535 – Myersville, Maryland 21773 “I " I honestly believe,” Mr. Martin said, “that if Bill Gates, or another wonderful philanthropic person like him, learns about what we’ve discovered, about the elegant simplicity of the solution Dennis Gunst created, about the success this technology has already had and the BILLIONS of people it can obviously help…he, too, will think the same thing I did after Frank Devlyn put those used eyeglasses on my face in Mexico City: ‘WOW! This can help people EVERYWHERE!’”

Mr. Martin said he believes that even in declining economic times, the number of illiterate and impoverished people can also decline. “The answer,” he said, “is right before our eyes!”

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More information: www.globalrevision.org

Contact: Robert Martin – 301.471.9998 or RMartin@globalrevision.org

The GLOBAL re-VISION Network was created by the 501(c)(3) Tree-Land Foundation, Inc.

Conquering the Cause

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:01:15 -0500

A Totally Unique New Approach to Winning the War on Illiteracy and Poverty Despite these difficult times, two socio-economic conditions absolutely seem to be thriving: illiteracy and poverty! Globally, at least a billion adults cannot read a book or sign their names. Of the estimated 3½ to 4 billion people who live in poverty, the World Bank calculates that over 2.8 BILLION people subsist on less than $2 a day. Despite the best intentions and countless humanitarian efforts over scores of years and many billions of dollars spent for pencils, books, computers, teachers, doctors, nurses, vaccines, vitamins, medicines, seeds, food, engineers, well-drilling equipment and water pumps to solve humankind’s worst problems, the number of impoverished people is actually increasing! Why? The “bottom-line” solution for illiteracy is education. Over time, improved and better education leads to economic improvement and a reduction in poverty. Good education “teaches people to fish so they can feed themselves for a lifetime” versus “giving people a fish and only feeding them for a day.” And while education in developed countries most often means educating children, among impoverished populations, the lack of, and need for, education cuts across all age ranges.Albert Einstein once defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” That could describe the majority of programs launched to overcome illiteracy and poverty. Over the years, efforts to supply everything presumed necessary to improve these conditions has been provided, yet little substantive change has actually occurred. Is there some other basic need or root cause that’s being overlooked or ignored? In considering the human requirements necessary for successful learning to occur it is logical to wonder whether some human condition or deficiency is at fault? One fundamental requisite for learning and literacy is vision…the ability to SEE! Humankind’s most prevalent learning disability IS poor eyesight. All the writing paper, pencils, books, and computers in the world are useless when people cannot SEE properly to USE them! But how serious a problem is poor vision? Can poor vision be “THE” problem?The most common kind of poor eyesight or vision impairment is called refractive error, and it includes nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism and presbyopia. Refractive error is easily remedied with eyeglasses. It is estimated that refractive errors comprise 93% of all vision impairments. That means that all other – often more medically serious – vision impairments combined (cataracts, corneal injury and disease, glaucoma, macular degeneration, trachoma, river blindness and others) constitute just 7% of all other vision problems! But how many people have refractive error, and perhaps more significantly, how many people have uncorrected refractive error?In attempting to evaluate the scope and size of the refractive error affliction, it became clear that NO consistent standards define what degree of visual debility is considered “deficient!” Attempts to enumerate people with refractive error have used varied, inconsistent arrays of methods: the severity of vision problems, the amount of refractive error, the degree to which the afflicted are "impaired," their ability or inability to read, work, or perform tasks, their ages, the regions of the world in which they live, ad infinitum. Researchers who categorize/quantify people with "uncorrected refractive error" presumably mean people who have no access to and/or who cannot afford eyeglasses.In February 2008, using the kinds of variable studies cited above, the World Health Organization wrote: “A total of 153 million people (range of uncertainty: 123 million to 184 million) are estimated to be visually impaired from uncorrected refractive errors.” In a world of nearly 6.8 billion people, that represents only 2% of the world’s population. Two percent certainly does NOT make uncorrected refractive error appear to be a very big problem…assuming those numbers are correct. Another, different basis of quantification, however, can be applied that is clearer and more straightforward and logical: Does wearing corrective lenses of any kind improve the vision of the afflicted person? In the United States, the percentage of people of all ages for whom eyeglasses improve vision is well documented by the optical industry itself and ranges between 60% and 65%. The U.S. population generally does not experience the extremes of poverty, malnutrition, cooking smoke, bright tropical sunlight, unsanitary conditions, non-existent medical attention and other factors that contribute to increased vision impairment in many countries. Therefore, a conservative, fair and reasonable basis for determining global corrective vision needs can be best attained statistically by using the U.S. variable percentages of incidence for each age group since refractive error universally increases with age. When those percentages are applied to the population of each country, the world’s population with both corrected and uncorrected refractive error – and irrespective of their economic circumstances – exceeds four billion people.The approximate percentages of each age group globally afflicted by refractive error are: · 27.4% of world population is under age 15 – with fewer than 10% having refractive error· 65.0% of world population ages 15 – 65 – with 60% needing corrective lenses· 7.6% of world population over age 65 – with at least 95% needing or wearing eyeglasses to function wellTo compile estimates of how many people globally have uncorrected refractive error, the population estimates of every country were aggregated, the number of people with refractive error in each of the three age ranges within that population were calculated, the above percentages were applied, and then the variable statistical averages for the percentages of people living below poverty levels based upon a reverse proportion to GDP (Gross Domestic Product). This amounted to at least 2.029 BILLION people who have uncorrected refractive error based on statistical probability and their poverty levels. These numbers far exceed – by twelve times (12X) – those published by the World Health Organization. Even when these figures are reduced by half, they are still 600% higher than those of the WHO! These numbers would seem to support the contention that refractive error – the world’s easiest-to-remedy vision impairment and one of the world’s easiest to remedy afflictions of any kind – is the predominant affliction handicapping the greatest number of people. Refractive error is NOT, then, an unsolvable problem. The major issue becomes: How do you screen the vision of 2.029 BILLION people with uncorrected refractive error – nearly one-third Earth’s population – and then provide them with eyeglasses? Is it even possible to correct refractive error on such a scale? People in developed countries take for granted their easy access to eye doctors and vision screening and the ubiquitous availability of eyeglasses. The expertise, investment, technology and equipment necessary to thoroughly examine a person’s vision and subsequently make each pair of eyeglasses, however, is substantial for both the provider and for the patient. Since, however, refractive error comprises 93% of all vision impairments, in impoverished countries it logically would initially be less complex and more economical to only screen-for-and-correct refractive error and not all other vision impairments. That would provide the fastest, most necessary help for the greatest number of people with the most common problem.In the past, most charitable efforts to provide eyeglasses to the poor have been imprecise, tediously slow, short-duration “mission” projects. This was, in part, because no fast, accurate, cost-effective, long-term solution was available. Those projects usually attempted to manufacture inexpensive prescription eyeglasses “on-site” – a costly, time and materiel intensive process – or they brought-along large quantities of used eyeglasses in average prescription strengths and did the best they could sorting through boxes pair-by-pair to find the best available prescription they had. Both processes were logistically challenging and had their own unique drawbacks…but they DID help some people. That was precisely the situation Englishman Dennis Gunst encountered when he began volunteering in charitable vision screening clinics in 1963. Mr. Gunst was a successful inventor in the early days of electronics engineering. He had emigrated from post-war Britain to California in the late 1940’s. He became a sound engineer in Hollywood, invented several devices for the film-making and television industries, sold his companies and retired at age 38. He learned Spanish and joined the Flying Samaritans, a group dedicated to providing medical care to the needy in Lower California and Mexico. Soon he was coordinating one of their eye clinics and in demand as a teacher. His motivating belief was that good eyesight was vital to overcoming illiteracy. Mr. Gunst spent his subsequent decades working – unpaid – in hundreds of charity clinics. In 1988, an idea occurred to him while he was sitting on the floor of a small clinic in Mexicali, Mexico rummaging through yet another box of used eyeglasses searching for a pair to help a patient. He wondered if a computer could somehow keep track of all the eyeglasses to make the selection process faster and more accurate. Assisting Mr. Gunst that day was Linda Figueroa, a Mexican woman, and her very bright 18 year old son Martin. When Mr. Gunst asked Martin “Would you like to learn how to program a computer?” Martin’s enthusiastic answer was “Si!” Those were the “early days” of computers and, like many other people in those days, Mr. Gunst had taught himself the Microsoft DOS computer programming language. Already an expert on eyeglasses technology and vision prescriptions, his task was to combine those two areas of expertise and, with Mr. Figueroa as his apprentice, try to develop a computer program. It took them nearly ten years.The end result was elegant and simple. It enabled easily-trained workers – no medical professionals were required – to operate a clinic and screen patient’s vision, determine their prescription and then very accurately dispense used eyeglasses – exclusively – to fill those prescriptions. The entire process took only about three (3) minutes per patient! Mr. Gunst believed that a large inventory of used eyeglasses in a clinic could sufficiently provide for most the variables in patient prescription eyeglasses needs, and his computer program basically data-based enormous quantities of used eyeglasses by their prescriptions and other distinctive characteristics (Eg. clear or dark lenses, large or small lenses and frames, women’s or unisex frame styles, good, fair or poor frame condition, etc.).Mr. Gunst’s computer program employed mathematical algorithms and used weighted errors to determine which pair of eyeglasses would provide the closest match for the patient’s prescription. In order to determine the speed and accuracy of the new program Mr. Gunst went to the Southern California College of Optometry to test it. The results were reported in the 2001-2002 winter newsletter of VOSH/INTERNATIONAL (VOSH-Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity): “…for their dissertation, two students (from the college) were enlisted to test the computer program against three members of the faculty. The computer and staff were given a random bunch of prescriptions to fill and were also given a random bunch of glasses prescriptions. Their task was to choose the best glasses for each patient. The computer was as good as the members of the faculty and happened to be the least divergent of all.” To determine the prescriptions of the used eyeglasses and to eliminate prescription data input (human) errors, Mr. Gunst attached an electronic Lensometer directly to a computer. A Lensometer “reads” the prescription information from each lens in a pair of glasses then, in this case, electronically exports that information into the computer. The computer then “remembers” those identifying characteristics and assigns a specific storage location for each pair of glasses in the warehouse. There they await a patient who needs that particular pair of eyeglasses. At the same time Mr. Gunst and Mr. Figueroa were developing their computer program, another electronic device called an Autorefractor was becoming more and more reliable and accurate. In a fraction of a second, an Autorefractor can photograph the inside of a person’s eyeball to determine any refractive errors. The information it instantly calculates and provides IS an eyeglasses prescription. Autorefractor-determined prescriptions were becoming – and have since become – as accurate as prescriptions determined during a 30-60 minute optometric or ophthalmic examination. An “Autorefractor-only” examination, however, is not as comprehensive with respect to total eye health and eye care, but Mr. Gunst’s intentions were primarily to address and remedy the most prevalent vision problem, refractive error, and make the eyeglasses selection process faster and easier for the clinic workers (like himself!) and much more accurate for the patient. An easily trained person using an Autorefractor can determine the vision prescriptions of 30-40 people in an hour. In the late 1990’s, Mr. Gunst spent 2 years in Mexico City working in collaboration with Devlyn Optical, Mexico’s largest optical company, the Mexican Red Cross and Rotary Clubs to establish a charity clinic there using his program. The resulting Gift of Good Vision Clinic was a smashing success. It has since provided eyeglasses to tens of thousands of indigent people.In 2001, Dr. John Todd, a physician and retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral telephoned Robert Martin to ask him if his non-profit organization wanted the five or six thousand pairs of used eyeglasses in deteriorating boxes stacked in a barn in Frederick County Maryland. Dr. Todd had sold the property and was moving. Although Mr. Martin said “Yes,” he did so with no plan and only a vague idea of not wasting a resource that could possibly be re-donated to another charitable organization. In 1994, Mr. Martin had co-founded and became executive director of the Tree-Land Foundation, Inc., a conservation and environmental education not-for-profit organization. The Foundation owned undeveloped property near the Appalachian Trail in Maryland that was made freely available to groups like Scouts for conservation, reforestation and nature-oriented projects. Mr. Martin, along with his co-founder Charles Klein, had also journeyed dozens of times throughout the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico and shared a decades-long interest in Mayan anthropology and archaeology. Through Tree-Land Foundation, they also organized and led numerous Scout youth, college student and adult excursions to live and do conservation and community service work in Mayan villages among the indigenous people. In late 2002, Mr. Martin learned about a charity clinic in Mexico City that needed used eyeglasses and traveled there to investigate possibly donating the eyeglasses Tree-Land Foundation had to it. At the central Mexico City clinic, Mr. Martin’s host, Frank Devlyn asked, “Do you know how we give people eyeglasses here?” Mr. Martin did not. “Take off your glasses and sit down in front of this machine,” he was told.“Put your chin in the cup” Mr. Devlyn said as light from the machine blinked into Mr. Martin’s eyes. “This machine is called an Autorefractor.” It produced a slip of paper that Mr. Devlyn removed. “Follow me,” he said as they walked through a warehouse with hundreds of labeled cardboard boxes on shelves. In the back, the six numbers on the slip of paper were typed into a computer. It printed out another receipt which Mr. Devlyn took into a maze of shelves. He reached into the numbered box the computer had indicated and pulled out a plastic bag with a pair of eyeglasses in it. “Try these on,” Mr. Devlyn said. “How well can you see?”Mr. Martin peered around the warehouse. Everything looked clear. He gazed toward the front of the clinic and out the window at the buildings across the street. They looked clear, too. Mr. Devlyn handed him a card and said “Can you read this?” He could, and he said so. “Those are used eyeglasses,” Mr. Devlyn said.“But these are MY prescription. How did you do that?” Mr. Martin asked?“We use a special computer program that data-bases the used eyeglasses by prescription. The Autorefractor gave us your prescription. The computer knew we had what you needed and told us which box it was in.”“Where else is this program being used?” Mr. Martin asked. Mr. Devlyn’s answer was “Nowhere.”Mr. Martin was astounded by the clinic’s simplicity and seemingly magical capabilities. He returned to the clinic several times and watched as grateful people got their first-ever “new” eyeglasses…but who then couldn’t read the eye chart because of their tear-filled eyes! Later, Mr. Devlyn generously agreed to Mr. Martin’s request that he be allowed to use the computer program to open a similar clinic in Yucatán and use Tree-Land Foundation’s eyeglasses there instead of sending them to Mexico City. Frank Devlyn made another strong recommendation to Mr. Martin…in addition to being co-owner and head of Central America’s largest optical company, Mr. Devlyn also was – along with his two brothers – a long-time member of a Rotary Club. In 2000-2001, Frank Devlyn had served and traveled around the world as the International President of the 1.2 million-member Rotary organization. Mr. Devlyn told Mr. Martin that Rotary’s motto “Service Above Self” exemplified his intentions, and he urged-and-sponsored Mr. Martin to become a Rotarian…which he subsequently did. Mr. Martin had been an entrepreneur and retail business owner for twenty-five years. He reasoned that starting a clinic was much like starting a new store. He knew he’d need many more used eyeglasses uniformly packed to be easily shippable. He would need to warehouse and ship them…and deal with customs issues. He would need a clinic facility in Mexico with workers. There were many issues to deal with and decisions to be made. Over the ensuing three years Mr. Martin began the “Mayan Vision Projects” to establish a vision screening – eyeglasses providing clinic in Mérida, the capital city of Yucatán and:· Joined and enlisted cooperation and grant assistance from the Rotary Club of Rockville (Maryland) and Rotary International to begin to establish the prospective clinic.· Established close relations with, and also joined the Lions Club organization. Lions are the premier “collectors” of used eyeglasses donations in the U.S. and began provided thousands of used eyeglasses for the proposed Yucatan clinic. Mr. Gunst is also both a Rotarian and a Lion member.· Created the community service “Old Glasses for New Eyes Program” in cooperation with the Frederick County (Maryland) Public Schools-sponsored job-and-life-skills SUCCESS training program for mentally and/or physically impaired 18-21 year old students. Since 2003, the students have spent several days each month sorting, counting and packing donated, used eyeglasses for shipping…and they had boxed over 300,000 pairs of glasses by 2009.· Lived and worked with Dennis Gunst at his home/lab in Ensenda, Mexico in October 2004, and volunteering at a charity vision clinic in Tecate, Mexico with the Flying Samaritans. Mr. Gunst approved the plans of the Mayan Vision Projects and granted permission for his updated computer programs to be used and for collaborations with Martin Figueroa.· Made numerous trips to Mérida to negotiate and establish a partner relationship with DIF Yucatán and work-out clinic establishment logistics. (DIF Yucatán is the acronym for Sistema para el Desarollo Integral de la Familia en Yucatán-the state government-run family health and social services agency.)· Negotiated for DIF Yucatán to provide the clinic's "physical plant" facility, its renovations in Mérida, employees, utilities, Internet access, free transportation to-and-from the clinic for people from outlying pueblos, etc. · Agreed to provide and deliver the eyeglasses inventory, the electronic equipment, the special computer program, and worker training. · Gained the cooperation and collaboration of Rotary Clubs and Lions Clubs in Yucatán. · Purchased and delivered electronic diagnostic and computer equipment for the clinic.· Arranged warehousing and trucking for the glasses · Discovered a customs broker "angel" in Hiram Cervera in Progreso, Yucatán.· Negotiated arrangements with the Yucatán state and Mexican federal governments for the duty-free donation of 80,000 pairs of eyeglasses and clinic equipment.· Worked with Radiance Shipping Company to "containerize" and ship the eyeglasses from Tampa, Florida to Progreso, Mexico. · Designed the layout of the clinic facility. · Brought Martin Figueroa to Mérida to install the electronics and train the clinic workers in November, 2006 and again in January, 2007. On February 1, 2007, the Gran Inauguración of the Clínica de Salud Visual "Ver Bien para Vivir Mejor" (Grand Opening of the Clinic of Visual Health "See Well to Live Better") occurred. Included among the participants was the wife of Yucatán's governor Silvia Cicero de Patrón, officials and administrators from DIF Yucatán, the Yucatán government, and Devlyn Optical Company, Rotary Club members, many guests from other parts of Mexico including Linda and Martin Figueroa from Mexicali, Mexico and from the United States including the lead teacher and one of the students from Frederick County’s SUCCESS Program. Due to a serious and deteriorating health condition, Dennis Gunst was too ill to attend. Today, the Mérida clinic provides free eyeglasses for about 2000 patients a month. Each week, DIF Yucatán brings patients to the clinic by bus from nearby villages. The clinic workers also travel with their equipment to more distant villages where they examine peoples’ eyesight and then later return with eyeglasses for everyone needing them. In addition, the government realized that the clinic provided them with a “screening platform,” and has subsequently initiated a screening protocol at the clinic to identify cataract patients and elsewhere provide them with free cataract surgery. It was while planning the Mérida clinic that questions about the potential scope and size of refractive errors as a global problem were raised and began to be examined. Other organizations and governments were requesting consideration that the Mayan Vision Projects open other clinics. Mr. Martin spent months researching and examining vision problem-related data. He wanted to satisfy his growing suspicion that Mr. Gunst’s approach had broader international applications, and to determine – if possible – its size.Mr. Martin enlisted the expertise of geographer and Rotarian Robert Ketron, founder of the Gift of Sight Foundation, an expert in corneal injury and disease and international advocate for establishment of “eye banks.” It was Mr. Ketron’s ground-breaking analysis of every country’s population, poverty and impaired vision/refractive error statistics that led to the startling revelations of the grossly underestimated magnitude of refractive error as a primary causal factor of illiteracy and poverty.Ultimately, the Mayan Vision Project name was changed to the GLOBAL re-VISION Network. This was done to reflect the newly-recognized, enormous international need indicated by Mr. Ketron’s research, the environmentally intelligent recycling approach Mr. Gunst had developed and to describe the interconnectedness of the many people and organizations vital to the clinic supply and establishment process.After the Mérida clinic opened and awareness of its success became better and better known, Mr. Martin continued collecting and warehousing eyeglasses, and he began numerous speaking engagements to Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs and other organizations in the U.S. An important question arose regarding whether a sufficiently large, ongoing supply of used eyeglasses was available to supply the opening of many more new clinics. This question led Mr. Ketron to undertake additional research for the new GLOBAL re-VISION Network…with almost unbelievable results!Mr. Ketron found that nearly two hundred million people in just the U. S. wear some kind of eyeglasses. Research showed that between fifty and seventy million new pairs of eyeglasses are sold each year. He estimated that if each eyeglasses-wearing person owns just two-or-three pairs of eyeglasses – old ones they don’t use anymore – there are at least five hundred million (500,000,000) pairs of used eyeglasses available for donation and recycling. Mr. Martin was skeptical the quantity could be so enormous until a member of his Rotary Club donated 19 pairs that had belonged to his recently deceased wife. Clearly, America, alone, could potentially supply enough used eyeglasses to help 25% of the world’s vision impaired poor. The question was: How to collect them? Mr. Ketron’s best estimate of the number of used eyeglasses annually collected by Lions Clubs and other organizations was only between 1% and 2% of the available supply. In recent years and for many reasons, donations and collections had remained relatively small because there also were no compelling efforts or reason to increase them. There also had been no way to distribute more used eyeglasses than were being collected. In 2008, the GLOBAL re-VISION Network was contacted by representatives involved with the U. S. Navy’s recently-initiated humanitarian programs. For many years, the Navy had transported emergency crisis and relief aid to many parts of the world following disasters. Now, the American government was quietly developing and tasking the Navy with initiating humanitarian health and human services efforts in “permissive environments,” i.e. places the Navy Program was invited and/or voluntarily present to provide aid to the disadvantaged people in those countries. One of the major goals of the Navy’s Global Maritime Partnership Program was to cooperate and collaborate with existing NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) programs. Because NGO’s were already providing some kinds of aid in foreign venues, the Navy wanted to explore ways to work with the NGO’s and not overlap by providing the same assistance to those countries. One of the idiosyncratic, government-imposed “conditions,” however, was that the Navy could not request anything from the N.G.O.’s…but they could accept, if they wished, whatever an N.G.O. might offer! The Navy needed used eyeglasses for their 2009, “Mercy” ships deployment. Mr. Martin became aware of that need and tried to acquire a hundred thousand pairs of eyeglasses from Lions Eyeglasses Recycling Centers for them. Lions Center eyeglasses are “ready-to-dispense,” but in the same, old-time, slow manner that spurred Dennis Gunst to develop the system GLOBAL re-VISION now used. Due to time constraints, however, Mr. Martin was unsuccessful. The eyeglasses that GLOBAL re-VISION had in its warehouse needed to be processed – or classified – for use at the clinic – as they are in Mérida. Cleaning, sterilizing and determining the prescriptions of 100,000 eyeglasses and warehousing them were not ship-board tasks. In further discussions with the Navy in late 2009, the GLOBAL re-VISION system was discussed in great detail. Mr. Martin explained the possibility of classifying the eyeglasses in the U.S. – perhaps employing physically and mentally impaired workers like the SUCCESS students – and bar coding the information onto bagged, boxed and ready-to-ship eyeglasses would enable a shipboard clinic, or a newly established clinic, to instantaneously “beep” used eyeglasses into their computerized inventories in the same way items are checked-out at a grocery store.Although the Navy could not “ask for” anything…their need and desire for such a capability and for such a program would certainly be accepted if offered. The bar coding workshop/facility needs to be developed, Mr. Martin said, for the program to expand. Funding for that capability and also to expand the number of clinics becomes the major hurdle. Mr. Martin believes that the GLOBAL re-VISION Network will grow as awareness of refractive error’s true severity and negative impact on quality of life, of its connected, horrendous effect on perpetuating illiteracy and poverty, and of the simple solution that recycled eyeglasses offers the world become better known. The GLOBAL re-VISION Network has developed an eyeglasses collecting and fund-raising program called SPEC$+BUCK$. The idea is for service organizations, schools, Scout groups and others to solicit donations of used eyeglasses plus a dollar wrapped around them. The eyeglasses would supply new clinics that the money helps establish. Donations can be sent to: SPEC$+BUCK$ - P. O. Box 535 – Myersville, Maryland 21773 “I honestly believe,” Mr. Martin said, “that if Bill Gates, or another wonderful philanthropic person like him, learns about what we’ve discovered, about the elegant simplicity of the solution Dennis Gunst created, about the success this technology has already had and the BILLIONS of people it can obviously help…he, too, will think the same thing I did after Frank Devlyn put those used eyeglasses on my face in Mexico City: ‘WOW! This can help people EVERYWHERE!’” Mr. Martin said he believes that even in declining economic times, the number of illiterate and impoverished people can also decline. “The answer,” he said, “is right before our eyes!”-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------More information: www.globalrevision.orgContact: Robert Martin – 301.471.9998 or RMartin@globalrevision.org The GLOBAL re-VISION Network was created by the 501(c)(3) Tree-Land Foundation, Inc.

A New Approach for REALLY Ending Illiteracy and Poverty

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:12:05 -0500

Illiteracy and poverty are thriving!

The World Bank reports that more than 2.6 BILLION people – over 1/3 of Earth’s population – exist on less than $2 a day. And despite all the years and billions of dollars spent on countless programs sending pencils and books, computers and teachers, doctors and nurses, vitamins and drugs, seeds and food, engineers and well-drilling equipment and water pumps to solve humankind’s problems, the number of impoverished people is going up!

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Now, new research indicates we are overlooking what likely may be a primary underlying cause of most illiteracy and poverty. The “Bad News” is: Simply recognizing problems does not solve them. The “Good News” is: This problem now has a large-scale solution. And the “Even Better News” is: This solution is simple; it recycles manufactured resources; it’s inexpensive and requires only a tiny effort from us! Because “Now we can,” it is time to do something besides “What we’ve always done.”

Illiteracy and poverty’s underlying cause is a vision impairment called refractive error (nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism and presbyopia). The simplest, least expensive remedy for refractive error is eyeglasses. For meaningful progress against illiteracy and poverty ever to occur, impoverished people need eyeglasses.

First-off…NOBODY really knows how many people worldwide are afflicted by refractive error because, in large part, no consistent standards define what degree of visual debility is considered “deficient.” Attempts to enumerate people with refractive error use a varied, inconsistent and confusing array of methods: the severity of vision problems, the amount of refractive error, the degree to which the afflicted are "impaired," their ability or inability to read, work, or perform tasks, their ages, the regions of the world in which they live, ad infinitum. Researchers who categorize/quantify people with "uncorrected refractive error" presumably mean people who have no access to and/or who cannot afford eyeglasses.

This contention is supported by research calculating that more than 2 BILLION people have uncorrected refractive error – i.e. they need, but have no access and/or no ability to afford eyeglasses. This research suggests a figure twelve times higher than previously thought. It is based on a quantification that is clear, straightforward and logical: Would wearing corrective lenses of any kind improve the vision of the afflicted person?

In the United States, the percentage of people of all ages for whom eyeglasses improve vision is well documented by the optical industry itself and ranges between 60% - 65%. The U.S. population generally does not experience the extremes of poverty, malnutrition, cooking smoke, bright tropical sunlight, unsanitary conditions, non-existent medical attention and other factors that contribute to increased vision impairment in many countries. Therefore, a fair and reasonable basis for determining global corrective vision needs can be best attained statistically by using the variable percentages of incidence for each age group, since refractive error universally increases with age.

To compile our estimates of how many people globally have uncorrected refractive error, we aggregated the population estimates of every country, calculated the number of people with refractive error in each of the three age ranges within that population, applied the above percentages, and then the variable statistical averages for the percentages of people living below poverty levels based upon a reverse proportion to GDP. This amounts to at least 2.029 BILLION people who have uncorrected refractive error based on statistical probability and their poverty level.

…more, soon!

Who we are...

How we got involved and why…

How recycled eyeglasses CAN solve the problem (video at www.globalrevision.org)...

What people can do to help…