(PRESS RELEASE) CINCINNATI, OH – Setting sail on June 10, OneSight announced today that 44 volunteers will travel by boat to provide vision care and produce glasses for over 2,500 indigenous Amazon River residents.
OneSight is taking their commitment to bring sight to the world, no matter how distant, to a new level. Due to the remoteness of each community, citizens along the Amazon must travel more than 24 30 hours to the only city that offers eye-care in the region, Manaus. To overcome this vast distance barrier, OneSight is hosting their first-ever clinic on two boats, bringing vision care to those in need and testing out new portable eye care instruments and technologies, exclusively made to work in remote environments with difficult logistics.
OneSight is partnering with two local Amazon groups, Barco Hospital Methodist Church and the Penido Burnier Foundation, to navigate across three communities – Muritinga, Cuia and Murai.
“We could not reach this indigenous population without the help of these two generous partners,” said Mony Iyer, president and executive director at OneSight. “They are going above and beyond to make this unique clinic a success by coordinating the boat and crew rental, translators and the necessary ophthalmologists.”
OneSight’s laboratory, technology and large inventory of lenses and frames will be set up on the boat, while vision consultations will be provided inland. This set up will allow for almost every patient to receive their glasses the same day. If proven successful and efficient, the instruments and technology will substantially increase OneSight’s ability to serve more people in need, without being dependent on the standard logistics process.
“We are committed to identifying solutions to reach and provide access to vision care and glasses to even the most remote communities in the world,” said Iyer. “We are honored to be able to provide much needed vision care services to the communities across the Amazon River. We know through our work in communities around the world that glasses do so much more than give clear sight – they give hope and possibility.”
OneSight launched a ‘Victory is in Sight’ campaign to raise awareness about the powerful difference a simple pair of glasses can make. In an effort to provide 20 million people with access to glasses by 2020, OneSight is scheduled to travel to 30 communities across the globe this year alone. In 2018, OneSight hosted a clinic in Antigua to benefit those impacted by Hurricane Irma. That effort, along with the upcoming clinic in the Amazon, is just the beginning of OneSight furthering its mission not just in communities that lack access but those that have had that access taken away by natural disasters.