We Bring Hope
Working Vision
The Cornea Research Foundation of America has established fiscal sponsorship of Working Vision
INDIANAPOLIS – September 2009. The Cornea Research Foundation of America has established fiscal sponsorship of Working Vision, a new nonprofit charitable organization focused on reducing the incidence of work-related eye injuries in developing nations by distributing new and slightly used safety eyewear to workers. Donations of safety eyewear come from students finishing high school and college chemistry classes, the U.S. industrial sector, and eyewear manufacturers; a distribution center is being piloted in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Before becoming a medical student at New York University School of Medicine, Grant Moore was a summer intern at the Cornea Research Foundation of America. At the CRFA, Grant learned the impact that vision improvement has on people’s lives and became inspired to reduce the rate of preventable eye injuries in developing nations. Following introductions from Dr. Francis Price, the Foundation’s President, Grant contacted two significant doctors working in Nepal, Dr. Ruit, the visionary leader of Kathmandu’s Tilganga Eye Centre (TEC) and Geoff Tabin, M.D., founder of the Himalyan Cataract Project.
In the summer of 2008, Grant traveled to Nepal where he worked as a research intern at TEC. While working at TEC, Grant was astonished by the number of patients he saw with work-related eye injuries. He soon learned that, unlike the United States, which has OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Association), most developing countries lack solid government-mandated occupational safety standards. Inspired by the work of Dr. Ruit and Dr. Tabin, Grant designed a survey to better understand the causes and severity of the work-related eye injuries presenting to Tilganga and also to gauge patients’ interest in safety eyewear use. He returned to America inspired and encouraged to pursue his charitable mission.
Thus far, Grant has received help from several sources: The Fred Hollows Foundation in Australia has helped Working Vision develop and distribute Grant’s survey at eye centers in several Southeast Asian countries. The Cornea Research Foundation of America has agreed to provide fiscal sponsorship for Working Vision, including data management and statistical analysis to document outcomes. Boeing, General Electric, CSX Transportation, Columbia University and Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School have come forward to collect and donate protective eyewear for the charitable project, and FedEx is shipping the eyewear to Nepal as an in kind donation. For more information please visit: http://www.workingvision.org
