Optometry Education Around the World
Grantees: VOSH California, Charis Vision and Health Mission, Canadian Vision Care, University of Cape Coast
Every donation to Optometry Giving Sight funds two kinds of impact: the patient who receives an exam or a pair of glasses today, and the optometrist who will provide that care for decades to come. Many of our funded projects include an education component — here’s a closer look at four whose training work is particularly central to their mission.
VOSH California — Nicaragua
VOSH California has been foundational to the development of optometry in Nicaragua, helping to establish the country’s first optometry school at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN). An OGS grant is now funding a Specialty Contact Lens Clinic within the Visionary Clinic in Managua, providing hands-on training to UNAN students and graduates in scleral and rigid gas-permeable contact lens fitting — services previously unavailable in the country — while delivering affordable, advanced care to patients who need it most.
Canadian Vision Care — Philippines
For more than 12 years, Canadian Vision Care’s Eye Train project has delivered eye care from two converted railway cars in Manila — a permanent, locally managed clinic that has served over 120,000 patients and now functions as a clinical training site for Filipino optometry students. An OGS grant is helping to expand the clinic’s capacity and deepen its outreach, including immersive learning experiences when Canadian optometry teams visit each year.
University of Cape Coast — Ghana
OGS awarded a grant to UCC’s School of Optometry and Vision Science to launch Opto-SCOPE, a program that embeds mobile eye care units within Ghana’s existing community health compounds in the Central Region. Final-year optometry students gain hands-on clinical experience through the program while bringing vision services to rural communities that currently have none — a model designed to be replicated and sustained well into the future.
Charis Vision and Health Mission — Nigeria
In partnership with Arthur Jarvis University in Akpabuyo, Cross River State, OGS helped fund a state-of-the-art optometry clinic — one now reported to house diagnostic equipment not available in many Nigerian teaching hospitals. The clinic serves the surrounding community while giving optometry students hands-on clinical training. Late last year, the facility was formally commissioned in a ceremony that also celebrated the induction of seven new Doctors of Optometry.
By investing in this life-changing work, we are helping to build a future where quality eye care is not a one-time gift, but a lasting, local reality that the community owns and sustains. Your donations make a difference now and into the future.