A look to the future

We are a non-profit social organization, which aims to democratize access to visual health and the donation of prescription glasses to those who need it most. With an adapted bus, transformed into two ophthalmological clinics to work in joint efforts, we traveled to Brazil taking quality ophthalmological care and distributing glasses free of charge to vulnerable communities, public schools, riverside communities, traditional peoples, among others. We want to impact the Brazilian visual health scenario, giving people the chance of a more dignified life, in which they can explore their maximum potential. Whether in the classroom, at work or in everyday activities, a pair of prescription glasses has the power to transform lives. We offer our audience the opportunity to see perfectly. An activity that seems simple, but for those who can't, we deliver the improvement in the citizen's quality of life.

The wait for consultation in Brazil is extremely long and time-consuming. According to the Federal Council of Medicine, 45% of patients have been in hospital for more than six months and 25% of patients have been in line for more than twelve months for specific consultations in the Unified Health System in peripheral communities. A total of 85% of Brazilian municipalities do not have an ophthalmologist on their staff, according to the Federal Council of Medicine. Scientific studies prove that 83% of the patients in the ophthalmology queue of the Brazilian Unified Health System are for refractive examinations and have their problems solved by a pair of glasses, while the remaining 17% require treatments and surgeries so that they can reverse or cure their pathologies. The big issue is that in an already onerous queue with a low supply of ophthalmic services by the Unified Health System in vulnerable territories, the problem arises that this queue does not prioritize patients who need specific procedures that glasses cannot manage solve as angliopia, glaucoma and cataract. Therefore, in addition to optimizing care with agility, efficiency and effectiveness, we offer the opportunity for large-scale care with high quality standards.

Our solution offers modular ophthalmic consultations. This form allows efficiency in ophthalmic health care throughout the patient's journey. The service consists of diagnosing severe pathologies and the need for refractive correction in the following steps: Registration, to identify clinical, social and economic indicators; Screening, to test patients' visual acuity and direct to technical assistance; Objective refraction, for clinical and patient analysis; Biomicroscopy, for analysis of the patient's eye and identification of severe pathologies that are not corrected by glasses; Subjective refraction, to identify correction with correction lenses; Optics, we offer a series of frames to contemplate the complete experience in the patient's journey, to guarantee the user the best care for free. The glasses are mounted on the spot for diopters from -10 to +10, to serve populations in isolated territories where reverse logistics does not allow access for populations in situations of social, economic and geographical vulnerability. The glasses are assembled on the spot for diopters from -10 to +10, which allows to serve populations in isolated territories where reverse logistics is expensive and makes it inaccessible to populations in situations of social, economic and geographical vulnerability.

Studies show that 85% of learning takes place through vision in its most diverse areas of knowledge, whether through texts, videos, games and the use of information systems, in addition to the social interaction of children and adolescents. Brazilian data shows that 22.9% of the school dropout rate is due to the difficulty in seeing and would be corrected and avoided by the use of glasses for refractive correction according to the Solidarity Literacy Program. School performance is directly linked to low visual acuity. That is, 75% of the cases show that children with low visual acuity have school performance and worse grades than the others according to the Revista da Associação Médica Brasileira. Thus, taking into account that vision is responsible for a large part of quality educational development and with alarming data on school performance and dropout, we have scientific evidence that students with vision problems, in addition to dropping out of school, have difficulty following classes and develop with quality. Therefore, ophthalmic consultations and correction glasses manage to improve the indicators of Brazilian education, in addition to identifying and preventing severe pathologies that influence the quality of life of the population in question.

Vision is a basic sense for performing both simple daily and more complex activities. All of them present for the development of the individual and the society in which he is inserted. That is, it is used as a tool for learning, generating value in economic activities and mainly for improving the quality of life of human beings based on their preferences. Therefore, our organization offers inputs that allow the full performance of every function that the human being would like to perform but cannot because of low visual acuity or lack of vision.

The technology of our equipment allows us to make more agile consultations and offer high quality and low cost glasses for donation.

The technology of our equipment allows us to make more agile consultations and offer high quality and low cost glasses for donation.

In six years of operation, we have served and consulted 60,000 patients. That is, with our technology, we are able to obtain an average of 10,000 patients per year. The expressive mark allows us to prove that all consulted patients who received the glasses, did so using our technology in exams and glasses production.

We do not intend to only bring isolated solutions, but we aiming to really solve the problem  in our country, we want to solve the vision health crisis in Brazil. Through our innovative model, with capacity to operate on a scale and at low cost, no one loses his vision or will be affected by an irreversible visual disease due to lack of access to early diagnosis. No one else will have their educational process interrupted or abandoned in their studies because their learning is affected by vision problems. Everyone can have access to quality, low-cost glasses. As queues of the public health system for ophthalmology, their burden is reduced and the people who need most receive their needs. Our methodology will be the reference of the sector and will consolidate this change in the middle of the articulated work with different agents from different sectors of society.

We want to impact the Brazilian and global visual health scenario, giving people a chance for a more dignified life, where they habe better chances of reaching their maximum potential. Whether in the classroom, at work or in everyday activities, a pair of prescription glasses has the power to transform lives. Since 2014, when it was founded by young academic Brazilians, the organization carried out 58,317 visits, 47,629 ophthalmological consultations and donated 54,315 glasses to children, adolescents, adults and the elderly, all in a state of social and economic vulnerability, of all races and genders in 23 states of Brazil, in addition to international outreaches in India, Haiti and Mozambique. For the next year, our goal is to serve 50,000 people and, consequently, offer ophthalmologic consultation and donation of glasses to those who need it the most.

The challenge for 5 years from now is even greater. We aim to reach 1 million impacted lives through our social outreaches for visual health in Brazil.

Considering that  each patient medical attendance generates a cost of $ 20.00 USD, our main barrier to reach the beneficiary population to be impacted is the faulty fundraising scenario amid the pandemic of the new coronavirus that caused a health and economic crisis in both Brazil as in the world. In order to be able to perform unitary care, it is necessary to collect $ 20.00 USD per patient, and offer him care, consultation and at the end the donation of glasses if necessary. Therefore, we understand the need to raise funds that will allow our activities to continue operating and gain even greater scale to achieve our goal and democratize access to the vision of the Brazilian population.

We plan to overcome these barriers in the way that we can get funds for it

Not apply

Currently our team has nine people: CEO, Executive Director, Commercial Director, Financial Director, Medical Director, Social Development Coordinator, Project Analyst, Logistic Analyst and Optical Consultant. Our solution is designed and delivered in a structural and modular way with the activity of each of the responsible areas and their respective representatives.

In these almost 6 years, we have been able to guarantee our experience and quality performance on our services based on our results from the consultations and diagnoses carried out, which awarded us the AACSB Leaders - 2019 awards; 1st Investment Ready Program Allianz Impact Hub and Action Accelerator, Varilux at the American Academy of Ophtalmology, Knight Templor Award at ARVO - 2018; Forbes 30Under30 and Social Entrepreneur of the Future of Folha de São Paulo - 2017; 5th place Enactus World Cup and winner of the Ford C3 Community - 2015; and Unilever Sustainable Solutions, Walmart Foundantion Women's Economic Empowerment and Santander Universidades - 2014 for evaluating the socioeconomic and clinical profile of our beneficiaries, in the quest to understand more about the reality of the Brazilian population and to generate scientific data, offer ophthalmic consultations, identify necessary treatments, forward to the tertiary treatment network and deliver the glasses as a tool for change, to gain the amount of lives impacted through our actions.

Partner organizations work with us on two main pillars: strategic partnerships and sponsorship. Both models allow us to carry out our activities in an effective and assertive manner, bringing social impact to the beneficiary population. They are the following organizations:

Adote Saúde

Atento

Bank of America

Fórum da Juventude da Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa

Fundação AT&T

Expedicionários da Saúde

Hospital de Amor de Barretos

Instituto Phi

Instituto Unimed

Instituto Verter

OneSight

Sulamerica

Conselho Nacional da Juventude

Our solution's business plan is to offer the value of quality vision to all Brazilians in a situation of social vulnerability through exams that diagnose the need for glasses and donate the glasses to those who need them, as well as referring them to eye treatments and surgeries. in hospitals and specialized organizations so that we can guarantee the vision of quality for all of our beneficiaries. Our cost center is based on social efforts, hiring doctors and buying supplies for the production of glasses, in contrast, our source of revenue is the sale of these glasses to anyone who can afford it and so the surplus becomes a donation, in addition to raising public and private resources so that the operation can take place in a massive way and achieve our goal of assistance and donations.

We look for partners to support us in carrying out social outreaches for donating glasses to people in social vulnerability. We have work recognized by several entities and won several awards, which helps us to gain recognition and attract new partners. Our biggest source of income comes from large companies such as Unimed, United Health Group, AT&T Foundation, Sulamérica, we are also representatives of One Dollar Glasses in Brazil, we seek long term partners that contribute annually to NGO Renovatio. On the expenses side, we optimized outreaches expenses by focusing on outreaches with more than 500 attendances per day so that we can impact as many people as possible with the lowest expense.