Scojo Foundation provides affordable eyeglasses to the poorest countries

Scojo Foundation provides affordable eyeglasses to the poorest countries - International Herald TribuneGOPAL PET, India: Surrounded by measuring tapes and ornate paintings of Hindu gods hanging on the walls of his dimly lighted workshop, Adimulam Devanand pushed the bridge of his glasses up his nose and hunched over a sewing machine to stitch a shirt. A year ago, Devanand, 42, had lost the ability to see objects as fine as a needle and thread, and his tailoring business was faltering. "I'd given up working altogether, and my wife had to do all the work," he said over the hum of the sewing machine. Desperate to support his two children, he went to a local clinic where he was found to have presbyopia, an age-related disorder in which the eyes progressively lose the ability to focus. The clinic sold him a pair of corrective glasses for 150 rupees, or $3.72. Devanand was immediately able to return to his craft. "Now I can share all the work with my wife," he said, gesturing to the woman who sat at an adjacent sewing machine, "and business has doubled, thanks to my glasses." Multimedia Managing Globalization blog » View Today in Business Barclays increases its offer for ABN AMRO with help from Asian investors Microsoft puts 18-month time limit on storage of search data Major airlines consider entering all business-class market Devanand's eyesight and livelihood were saved through the efforts of an innovative microfranchise program developed by the Scojo Foundation, a nonprofit social enterprise based in New York that uses market solutions to distribute inexpensive corrective glasses in the developing world. Worldwide, according to Scojo, more than 700 million people who make less than $4 a day suffer from presbyopia, limiting their ability to make handicrafts, read a newspaper or find insects on crops and separate seeds. Sufferers face the dark prospect of diminished productivity and greater poverty. But through Scojo, reading glasses that in the developed world can easily be found in any pharmacy or corner shop are becoming available to the world's poorest people, giving them the opportunity to regain their livelihoods. Scojo does more than just sell glasses. Operating in six countries, the foundation has trained more than 1,000 people to become microfranchise owners, or "vision entrepreneurs," who conduct basic eye exams, sell affordable prescription glasses and refer those who need advanced eye care to clinics and hospitals. According to Scojo, many of the microfranchise owners have doubled their income, and thousands of farmers, craftspeople and merchants have been able to return to work. "We create livelihoods for our entrepreneurs and sustain livelihoods for our customers," said Jordan Kassalow, the New York optometrist and Council on Foreign Relations health expert who helped start Scojo in 2002. Using 5 percent of profit from the for-profit luxury eyewear company Scojo Vision, and grants from organizations like Open Society Institute of George Soros and the Acumen Fund, the Scojo Foundation addresses the most basic eye-care needs of local communities. It also trains its entrepreneurs to refer those in need of serious medical treatment to organizations like Orbis, the global anti-blindness charity. Across the developing world, nonprofit organizations like Scojo and multinational corporations are revolutionizing poverty alleviation efforts by engaging the poor not just as targets for aid but also as a lucrative global market wielding $5 trillion in actual purchasing power, according to the World Resources Institute, an environmental research organization in Washington. Stephen Gibson, author of the book "Microfranchising: Creating Wealth at the Bottom of the Pyramid," says that microfranchising turns beggars into businesspeople by teaching them entrepreneurial skills and creating financial independence through ownership. "We've been giving away products for decades, and most of the poor are still barefoot and pregnant," said Gibson, who teaches at the Center for Economic Reliance at the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University's . Microfranchising, say its advocates, provides men and women in urban slums and isolated villages with the training, products and marketing guidance to get small businesses up and running. By doing so, they connect millions of customers off the beaten path to telecommunications, health care and an array of other goods and services that improve the quality of life. In Ghana, Fan Milk has sold 8,000 people the bicycles and dairy products to become distributors, and in India, Hindustan Lever has trained nearly 31,000 women in its "Project Shakti" network to sell consumer products like coffee, laundry detergent and toothpaste. Since its inception in 2002, Scojo has joined forces with more than 20 private companies and nongovernmental organizations in Bangladesh, India, Ghana, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico to train microfranchise owners, often linking up with existing networks of health workers, peddlers and shopkeepers. In April, Scojo began collaboration with the nonprofit health organization Population Services International to distribute glasses throughout sub-Saharan Africa. In five years, Scojo has sold more than 70,000 pairs of eyeglasses to the poor across the globe.

Scojo Foundation provides affordable eyeglasses to the poorest countries - International Herald Tribune