We are proud to announce a new project that we have set up in the West African nation of Liberia – Bringing Vision to Liberia. Working with the Centre for Vision in the Developing World, Creative Associates International, the US Peace Corps and a number of other organizations, Global Vision 2020 has distributed 1000 glasses at 4 different locations in Liberia. This is a pilot project for us, and has been a great test of our distribution model of using local aid and development organizations who are already operating in-country.

There’ll be more blog posts over the next few days and weeks on Liberia, our impressions, photos, stories and our findings, but at the moment you can check out our Liberia page here for more information on the project. We’ve updated the map to include Liberia, check it out here.

If you’re in the area on September 26th, why not come along to the Aspen Dale Winery in Delaplane, VA, to support Global Vision 2020 with a wine-tasting, dinner and entertainment. Tickets are only $35 each, and all profits go to support Global Vision 2020.

If you’d like a ticket, please click here. For any more information, please email maddie@gv2020.org.

One of the most exciting developments for Global Vision 2020 recently is our new partnership with the Centre for Vision in the Developing World, based at the University of Oxford in the UK. The Centre is headed by Professor Josh Silver, the man who invented the process of self-refraction (where a person tunes the lenses to their own eyes, without needing an optometrist), and then created the world’s first self-adjustable eyeglasses, the Adspecs.

I first got in touch with Josh back in 2005, after I had observed a second-hand glasses distribution effort by the US Military. The levels of wastage and the poor level of correction that people received from glasses that didn’t really match their eyes spurred me to find a better solution. I found the Adspecs, phoned Josh, and began to set up the military’s adjustable glasses distribution efforts, which have been a huge success, distributing around 20,000 glasses to date.

The Centre will be providing Global Vision 2020 with training assistance, scientific and clinical validation of our work and their expertise on vision correction worldwide. Global Vision 2020 will be helping the Centre by providing deployment assistance and the capability to perform more vital research into the problem. You can visit the Centre here, or find out more about our partnership here.

We’re looking forward to working with them, joining forces to provide better vision correction worldwide.

Welcome to the new Global Vision 2020 blog! We’ve decided to launch this to keep you up to date about our work, and to provide a bit of background on vision correction worldwide, some of the science and stories from the distribution work that we do, as well as acting as a central place for news about self-adjustable eyeglasses, vision correction and the global vision to get a billion people wearing glasses by 2020.

By way of quick introduction, my name is Kevin White, and I’m the Executive Director of Global Vision 2020. I was in the US Marine Corps for 24 years where I set up the military’s humanitarian assistance program for adjustable glasses, which to date has distributed around 20,000 adjustable glasses to those who need them. You can find out more about me here. In the next few weeks and months I’ll be joined on the blog by some of my colleagues and those helping Global Vision 2020 out in our mission.

Please don’t forget that we depend on your donations to help bring glasses to the developing world – please help us by donating by clicking here.

Thanks for reading, and please come back regularly!