GoodVision USA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity committed to helping the over 1 billion people globally who are in need of eyeglasses, but can’t afford to buy them or do not have access to proper eyecare. GoodVision USA is working to address this global health inequity with our sustainable business model including local production of eyeglass frames, training of vision technicians, free vision testing, and onsite assembly and fitting of eyeglasses.

Our objective is to provide people living in poverty access to inexpensive and vision correcting eyeglasses while simultaneously creating employment.

Goal One: Distribute 5,000 pairs of glasses in 2024 and open an eyeglass frame production center in Liberia.

Goal Two: Train 10 new GoodVision Technicians by 2025 to expand services and help close the gap of an insufficient number of trained visual services professionals in Liberia.

Goal Three: Partner with US optical retail providers to increase awareness about visual impairments and its particular burden in low-income countries.

In February of 2021, the US leadership of GoodVision visited our project in Liberia and will do so again in December 2023. The February visit was an important opportunity to create personal bonds, learn about operational processes and challenges, share cultural understanding and learn about programmatic needs and further understand the Liberian eye health sector. The US and Liberian GoodVision leadership attended a Development Workshop in July 2023 hosted by our global organization, GoodVision, to collaborate and learn from our affiliated projects from all over the world. This allowed US and Liberian colleagues to collaborate in person and take the experience learned from other global GoodVision projects, both successes and challenges. There were multiple presentations of a technical nature on optical issues, program management, the latest technologies and best practices in eye services delivery.

Over the past 12-18 months GoodVision has undergone several changes. Covid-19 posed great challenges for our Liberia program due to government restrictions and difficulty in safely seeing patients. To overcome this challenge, health and safety precautions were taken once restrictions were lifted and our GoodVision technicians conducted smaller outreach events at first to ensure safety for themselves and the patients. The organization also underwent a large internal change this past year. Previously, the GoodVision Liberia program partnered with an existing low-cost medical clinic in Liberia. As our project matured, it began to outgrow this partnership and in July 2023 GoodVision Liberia became an independent non-profit entity in Liberia. This change required enormous time and resources in 2023. It meant temporarily scaling back on eye screening outreach events in order to focus on a smooth transition. A new eye clinic location was established at a prominent hospital in Monrovia, the capital city, organizational management, human resource, IT, and financial processes were created, and staff transitioned to being employed by the new entity. This step will allow for greater autonomy, new partnership opportunities in the future, and the ability to reach more communities.