The World Is Waiting — And We’re Showing Up
Every year, organizations around the world submit proposals to Optometry Giving Sight with a shared conviction: that access to primary eye care shouldn’t depend on where you were born. This year, 21 projects have been awarded grants, and the breadth of what they represent is nothing short of remarkable.
From Somaliland to Nicaragua, from Jacksonville, Florida to Ottawa, Ontario to Islamabad, Pakistan, these projects span six continents and dozens of communities where the need for primary eye care is urgent, real, and too often invisible to the rest of the world. What strikes us most, looking at this list, is how much thoughtfulness it represents. These are carefully designed, sustainability-minded programs built to outlast the funding cycle and leave behind something durable.
Some are building optometry schools from the ground up, ensuring that the next generation of eye care professionals emerges from the communities that need them most. Others are equipping mobile clinics, establishing vision centers, and training practitioners to reach patients who would otherwise never receive an exam.
School eye health programs in Pakistan, Jordan, Uganda, Jamaica, and Somaliland are addressing a truth this community knows well: a child who can’t see the board can’t learn, and a child who can’t learn faces a lifetime of narrowed possibility. Several projects target Indigenous and refugee populations; groups whose access to care has been historically limited and who stand to benefit from sustained, community-rooted investment.
The full list of funded projects will be announced soon. In the meantime, know this: every dollar raised through the World Sight Day Challenge, every donation made through TEAM OGS, every gift from partners like you—it’s all in here doing exactly what it was meant to do. And we are grateful.