Unique stories to inspire everyone to #LOVEYOUREYES

Emiliana Cabrera has always been surrounded by children. She raised 10 of her own and when they left home, she took a job as a janitor at the school in Qhora Qhora, a village at 3,000 meters above sea level near the city of Sucre in Bolivia. There, she unlocks the doors in the mornings, cleans the classrooms, sells sweets and sometimes also some home-cooked food. When GoodVision examines all the children for two days, the 53-year-old also wants an eye test because she complains of pain in one eye. The team is able to help her with reading glasses in the short term, but advises Emiliana to visit an eye clinic again soon.

This is what Bonita says, the mother of 9-year-old Edwin, who goes to school in Qhora Qhora near Sucre. The young woman is a single mother and has another small child. Together with them, she lives with her mother and an uncle. In the city, Bonita earns some money selling chicken, but this is usually not enough for all to survive. The Grandma herds sheep and bakes bread in a clay oven she built herself.

Many families in the area around Sucre live like this. Work is a scarce commodity here, the climate at 3,000 meters is harsh, as it gets bitterly cold at night and the sun burns the skin during the day.

For the young mother, it is fortunate that the school costs nothing and that GoodVision provides children with glasses free of charge.

Cecilia Diaz lives in the hills of the small Bolivian town of Quípima in the Boyacá region. All around her is an idyllic landscape. What is planted here seems to grow by itself: bananas, mangoes and several varieties of cocoa. So, the 49-year-old has her hands full: she cooks, takes care of the garden and looks after a few animals. She has raised four children of her own and two nephews, all of whom have now left home.

To get to the eye camp run by our project partner GoodVision, she had to walk

two hours down the mountain. But, she says, it was worth it, because the glasses now help her with all her everyday activities and she would have had to make a two-day trip to visit the optician.

Don Ruben waits patiently, perhaps because no one is waiting for him at home, as the

86-year-old lives alone in the mountain village of Turtur in the department of Boyacá. His 10 children and many grandchildren have been working in different places in Colombia for a long time. There is a huge rural exodus in Colombia, with over 80% of the country's 51 million inhabitants living in cities. Although Don Ruben now lives alone in the mountains, he is proud of all his children. They support his father and grandfather with a little money every month and so he manages to make ends meet. Only his eyes, he complains, are no longer keeping up. But of course, the GoodVision team has a solution for that!

Radhiya Devi is 35 years old and lives in Dhanbad, a town in the middle of the Jharkhand coalfield. The people here only know hard work in the mines. Radhiya collects coal every day, a tedious and dangerous job. 

The young woman had long had great difficulty seeing, especially in the dark. Walking home after a long day at work became a daily challenge. After she had her eyes tested at an eye camp organized by GoodVision she bought a pair of glasses. They make her life so much easier and safer, says Radhiya.

Surendra Sethi is 66 years old and lives in the village of Bira Pratapur in the state of Odisha in India. Surendra runs a small coconut stall on the side of the road where he sells around 50 coconuts a day and earns between 400 and 500 rupees. He uses this income to support himself and his wife.

Recently, Surendra has had increasing difficulty seeing up close - especially when counting money or reading. Thanks to a rural eye camp organized by GoodVision, he received a pair of glasses. Since then, his work has become much easier, and Surendra no longer gets confused with the change.

Pradeep Bhuiya, 32 years old and a laborer in the Dhanbad district of Jharkhand, is one of the many coal workers in the region. Some time ago, Bhuiya suffered a serious injury to his left eye at work. With no funds for treatment and no access to medical care in the remote area, his eyesight progressively deteriorated until he finally went completely blind in the affected eye. The cause was a traumatic cataract that developed because of the injury. Thanks to an eye camp organized by GoodVision, who collaborates with several eye clinics in this region, he was able to receive a free cataract surgery, which he gratefully accepted. Today, his sight has been fully restored.

Sahil Sethy is 10 years old and lives with his family in the slums of Bhubaneswar. His father irons clothes and his mother works as a domestic help. Due to an accident in his early childhood, Sahil has a severe visual impairment in his left eye. However, nobody noticed this as he was never examined. At elementary school, his parents noticed that their son held his head askew when reading and only looked with one eye, but neither they nor the teacher did anything about it. 

When GoodVision conducted an eye camp at Sahil's school, his condition was identified. He received an eye examination for the first time. Shortly afterwards, he was operated in one of GoodVision’s partner hospitals. The young boy is now attending a free vision school for support and the prognosis is positive: the 10-year-old will probably soon be able to see normally again with additional glasses.

We are delighted that through our school camps we can help children like Sahil, who still has many years of life and learning ahead of her, to regain full sight.

Samya Thada (left) is 74 years old, her sister Indramaya Thada 65. Both are having an eye test for the first time in their lives and both need reading glasses. They live in a remote mountainous region in eastern Nepal - where there are no spectacle stores and certainly no eye clinics. Together they have walked a long way to get to our eye camp. Now they are happy about their first pair of glasses.

Maili Nakarmi lives in the Nepalese mountain village of Lurpung, which was hit by the severe earthquake in Nepal in 2015. Many buildings were destroyed; the infrastructure was severely damaged and many houses in her village were also destroyed. The village was rebuilt with the help of German aid organizations, among others. 

Since the death of her husband three years ago, Maili has been living alone. She lives from a cow, four goats and some farming. It's not much, but enough to make ends meet - also because her two sons, who live in the city, also support their mother. The fact that help like that from GoodVision comes directly to the village is essential for women like Maili, because as a single woman she would have left her animals to have her eyes examined in the city.

Ratna Suwal is 75 years old, and his wife Chandramaya is 70. They have been married for 45 years. Their home is an old village house in the municipality of Roshi in the Nepalese Mountains. The couple live in seclusion with just one goat - they had to sell their buffalo three months ago because it had become too difficult for him to cut the grass. 

When GoodVision offered an eye camp in her remote mountain village, Chandramaya was very happy because she knew her eyesight had worsened over the years. A pair of reading glasses now helps her greatly in her daily life. She would never have undertaken the long journey to the city for this. That’s why it is especially important that eye screenings are provided in places where help rarely arrives.

Issaf Traoré spent decades navigating the streets of Ouagadougou as a professional chauffeur, his vision sharp behind prescription lenses. But when he retired, and his glasses wore out, he couldn’t afford to replace them. At 60, he found himself confined to the blurry outlines of a once-familiar city.

For five years, Issaf stayed close to home, relying on memory more than sight to move through the world. Then, one day, he noticed a small office on his street - GoodVision.

There, he received new glasses made by trained local technicians. In just one visit, the streets he once drove with confidence came back into focus.

Now, Issaf walks independently through Ouagadougou again. Every time he passes the GoodVision office, the team lights up - because they know what he’s regained isn’t just vision, but agency.

In a world where aging and poverty often shrink horizons, a pair of glasses restored his ability to move freely - and reminded us that clarity is a form of freedom.

Suzanna Marciel is 74 and lives in a remote riverside village in the Brazilian Amazon. To reach a recent GoodVision eye camp in the community of Palestine near Manacapuru, she boarded a bus, a boat for five hours, and then another bus, traveling the better part of a day to get there.

She came with a simple hope: to see clearly again.

Suzanna has 15 children, 54 grandchildren, and 8 great-grandchildren. For the past ten years, poor vision had kept her from sewing - an important part of how she supported her family. But at the outreach, she received her first pair of GoodVision Glasses.

With them, her vision and her independence were restored. She can sew again. She can earn again.

Her story isn’t just about the distance she traveled that day - it’s about the years she’s reclaimed, the self-reliance she’s regained, and the quiet power of possibility at any age.

Sometimes, a pair of glasses is more than a tool. It’s a return to purpose.

In the heart of Vila Nova Esperança, São Paulo’s “green favela,” Dalila shares a 10-square-meter home with her six siblings and parents. It’s a tight space, but it’s filled with resilience, and, now, new vision.

At a GoodVision eye camp, Dalila was diagnosed with severe myopia (-3.5 diopters). For too long, she had struggled to see the blackboard at school, missing out on lessons, details, and confidence. But that day, she left with a pair of individually fitted GoodVision Glasses and a new ability to learn with clarity.

Her story, though, is also deeply connected to someone else’s: her brother, Hobson. After school, Hobson worked at GoodVision, helping produce the very glasses that would one day change his sister’s life. With his wages, he began saving to study geography.

Dalila is proud of her brother not just because he made great glasses, but because he helped make a future.

In a place called “New Hope,” vision isn’t just restored -it’s passed forward, one sibling, one student, one dream at a time.

Optometry was introduced in India in the year 1958. I qualified in 1961 by way of a Diploma in Optometry qualification. I joined Sir Ganga Ram Hospital as Refractionist in 1962, and worked there for 30 long years. While in service, I studied for Bachelor in Ayurrvedic Medicine and PG Certificate in Rehabilitation qualifications and started the Optometry Today journal. Optometry Today now runs in 55th year of publication, and aims at improving people's eye care through better-informed eye care professionals.

“I felt sad that I couldn’t see anymore. I was jealous of the other kids who could.” At just 12 years old, Ariana’s world was slipping away. Living in Bulacan, Philippines, she struggled in school unable to keep up with classmates or enjoy playtime. Cataracts in both eyes had robbed her of learning, confidence, and connection. Her parents were devastated. They knew surgery was the only answer, but it was unaffordable. Then came hope. As part of Noor Dubai Foundation’s International Outreach Program, a free eye camp was held in Bulacan. A local basketball court turned into a temporary clinic where Ariana’s family brought her with cautious hope. Seeing how anxious she was, the medical team moved quickly, skipping the waitlist and escorting her straight to the operating room. “I didn’t know how she’d handle it,” her mother recalls. “She was so scared.” Just 30 minutes later, the surgeons announced the procedure was a success. Slowly, Ariana’s world came back into view colors and faces. She returned to school, confident and eager to learn and play again. That one surgery didn’t just restore her vision. It restored her childhood, her confidence, and her future.