Donations in Action
Each year, donations to Optometry Giving Sight (OGS) enable us to fund projects globally that provide immediate eyecare to those in need today, and expand optometry so vision care is available for years to come.
Showing Up, No Matter What
Some of the most important work that OGS funds doesn’t make headlines. It just keeps going, through hurricanes, across island chains, one child’s eye exam at a time. This month, two grantees remind us what that kind of commitment looks like on the ground.
See Better. Learn Better. Jamaica
In November 2025, See Better. Learn Better. Jamaica was two weeks away from their annual school clinic when Hurricane Melissa made landfall as a Category 5 storm — its eye passing directly through the communities they serve in Negril. The clinics couldn’t happen. The schools were devastated.
But the program adapted. By March 2026, the team had restructured their clinical model to serve all 17 of their partner schools in a single intensive trip — plus one new school, Lucea Primary, a large school of 650 children. In four days, they performed over 2,200 vision screenings and 600 comprehensive eye examinations.
The March trip was also their largest training effort yet. Six University of West Indies optometry students and two recent graduates from Trinidad participated alongside 12 American optometry students and two residents — a significant step toward the program’s long-term goal of local Caribbean ownership. Each UWI student screened approximately 120 children and performed 30 comprehensive eye exams under experienced supervision. What the team learned will shape how they train future cohorts: these students graduate having seen roughly 200 patients, compared to the 2,000 typical for US-trained optometrists. See Better. Learn Better.’s high-volume, refractive-focused model is well suited to close that gap.
Six CooperVision employees also participated — marking the company’s third trip with the program — contributing in clinic flow, logistics, and optician support.
At the center of it all is a child named Othniel. Now in 5th grade, Othniel has been a patient of the program since 1st grade at Negril Primary School. Each year, the team updates his prescription as his myopia progresses. Each year, he comes back knowing the doctors by name — asking for “DP” (Dr. Paula) the moment he arrives, and presenting her with a drawing of dragons to add to the collection she keeps framed in her Ohio office. He is, in miniature, everything the program is for.
Berkeley Vision Pakistan: Every Child Sees
In District Jamshoro, Sindh, the Every Child Sees: One School at a Time program is doing exactly what its name promises — bringing vision screening directly into schools in one of Pakistan’s most underserved regions. Implemented by CBM Pakistan in coordination with the Sindh Institute of Ophthalmology and Allied Vision Sciences (SIOVS), with programmatic support from Berkeley Vision and OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation and funding from OGS, the program aims to screen 25,000 children over 12 months and provide free glasses to those who need them.
One of those children is Asad.
Asad, 13, failed his initial vision screening and was referred for a comprehensive exam. His ability to engage in class was limited due to distance vision impairment. With the correct prescription, his vision also reached 6/6. He can now see the board, participate actively, and return to his studies with the kind of confidence that had slipped away from him.
The program also reached beyond the school gates — conducting community awareness sessions in surrounding villages, where families learned about the importance of early vision screening for children and the persistent barriers — stigma, distance, cost, and simple lack of awareness — that keep so many from ever receiving it.
What connects these two projects is not geography or method but a shared understanding of what it actually takes to change the trajectory of vision care in a community: you show up consistently, you train the people who will be there after you leave, and you build the kind of trust that means a child will walk into a makeshift exam room even when they areshe’s frightened. Thanks to our generous supporters, that is the work that OGS funds. We are grateful.