See Clearly | Eye health & community in Kenya

Four years ago we started building a partnership with the amazing folks at Free the Children, now called We.org. Through this partnership, we are fulfilling our mission of Better Vision for Everyone by removing barriers to vision health and vision correction. Our team is lucky to have had the opportunity to travel to South Narok, Kenya multiple times over the last few years to help screen, support optical education, and provide prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses to thousands of children, women and men.

In our final reflection from our last trip to Kenya, Tim Lucy, our Senior Business Analyst, and Carla Rodriguez, our Logistics Team Leader, share their favourite moments and memories from their extraordinary journey from Vancouver, BC to the Masa Mara.

Meet Tim!

The group I was fortunate enough to spend this adventure with was the best that I could have asked for. Dedicated to helping others, big-hearted and lots of fun. Upon departure, we were a very excited group, taking pictures and preparing for the long trip to the Mara. Other than the long flights, it was a bit scary looking down at the dirt landing strip and seeing the wildebeests near the end of it thinking this was going to be a rough landing… I thought only in the movies would I ever see something like this..

On Day 1, the bumpy ride in the open air was both good and bad. I was very jet lagged but didn’t want to close my eyes and miss anything. If my memory serves, I believe on team member fell asleep bumping all over the place and at one point we thought she was going to be tossed out the window or get severe whiplash. I loved starting out the days with the morning walks. The landscape still dew filled and the warm sun on our faces… It was always a treat to hear the stories from the Masaii Warriors.

The nightly dinner also stands out in my mind. I’m sure we all looked forward to this every evening. The food was great and hearing what each person had to say about their day was always inspiring. Tuskers and Dawas, and playing games with lots of laugh’s spilling into the night. I may have been trying to push a few buttons, hopefully nobody was offended!

When thinking back to the first day of eye screenings, I can’t remember if we arrived late but seeing the huge line up of people waiting it sure felt like it. To add to that, there was a tour of the facility and needless to say, we didn’t start out very organized. It now felt like we were making the people wait forever to get their eyes tested. I’m not sure the number of people that were waiting but upon entering the tent with what felt like a thousand eyes watching our every move I was terrified to look up. When I finally did look at the crowd gathered I was greeted with huge smiles. I thought for sure people would have been complaining. Wow, that blew my mind and still does to this very day.  Once we got started with the eye exams we turned into a well-oiled machine and quickly tested a huge amount of people before the day was done.

Every day had something new to offer, whether it was the giraffe’s, the monkeys trying to steal the garbage, the bush babies screaming Craig’s name or the giant bugs attacking Liz was never a dull moment. At the time I felt like we were packing too much into each day but now I wouldn’t have it any other way, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on a single moment of our experience.

Meet Carla!

One moment that really stands out for me is when we went to Enelerai Primary School. I was at the frame station giving out the prescription frames to each child that needed them. This one little guy was very shy at first and didn’t really say much or show any kind of facial expression. I had him try on a pair of frames and look at himself in the mirror. When he saw himself for the first time a look of joy came over him. He couldn’t stop looking at himself in the mirror, and I remember how he didn’t want to put the mirror down.

To see him so happy overwhelmed me and I had to take a minute to get myself together. It was the best feeling to know I made his day and overall his every day going forward.

Kenya was an experience that I will cherish forever. How all 9 of us were able to come together to help people across the world with better vision is something not a lot of people can say. I hope with our presence there, that we were able to help promote eye health in this beautiful community in Kenya.

See Clearly |  Bogani & back again

Our stay at Bogani Cottages in the Maasai Mara was nothing short of magical, and the people we got to meet there made it all the more special. The staff and Me to We team were so accommodating and made us feel right at home. It was such a treat for us to be able to do a special vision screening for the staff closer to the end of our stay. We felt it was the least we could do to thank them for the wonderful hospitality. We had such an amazing opportunity to do screenings at the local health clinic and schools but it felt extra special being able to do the screening for the wonderful staff at Bogani, as we had the chance to really get to know them all and interact with them more.

We set up the screening after dinner one night and it was great seeing them all have fun with it, whether that was challenging each other to who could see better or teasing each other if they were struggling a bit to see the smaller letters. There was one staff member named Lillian who noticeably saw a difference with the glasses on and immediately started beaming when she could see well. She was so very thankful that we were able to help her with that and gave us a big hug when we left. I already miss the Kenyan hospitality and those special people that made all the difference during our trip.

On the last day of our trip, it was time to say goodbye to the Maasai Mara and make our way back to Nairobi. It was incredibly difficult to say goodbye to the staff who really felt like family to us at that point, and to the amazing community of the Mara. Not only was it absolutely breathtaking, but the locals we had the pleasure of meeting and the way of life we were introduced to left a lasting impression we would carry with us for a lifetime.

During our trip back to Nairobi, we stopped in to the Me to We Atelier to see where some of the products are made and sold. As we finished up some last minute purchases and started to leave to the bus to head to our next destination, we ran into a friendly, petite woman who introduced herself as Roxanne. It didn’t take me long to realize that it was Roxanne Joyal, CEO of Me to We and a founding member of Free the Children. She lives in Nairobi for parts of the year and was there for business, so it just so happened by chance that our group got to run into her. We had a chance to sit down and share some lunch with her and it was so inspiring to hear more about Roxanne’s story. She asked us lots of questions about how our experience was in the Mara and we got to learn more about her life in Nairobi and what really inspires her. It was an incredible opportunity to spend time with her and it was really clear how passionate and dedicated she is to her role with Me to We and its mission to change the world. She has a huge heart and we felt so lucky to have met her face-to-face. I felt it really was a perfect ending to the trip to see how the organization and charity do what they do.

Contribution from: Liz G, Call Center Manager Extraordinaire

Good Giving | To walk the walk

There is an African proverb that perfectly sums up our time in Kenya with Free the Children, “Mikono mingi kazi haba” in Swahili, or in English, “many hands make light work”. While helping with vision screening, distributing prescription eyeglasses and sharing the importance of eye health our team was also invited to get to know the families of the communities we were partnering with. For today’s #FlashbackFriday we reflect on our time visiting and working with the amazing community members we met in Kenya, and specifically the Mamas who shared their homes, their families and their way of life with the Clearly team. With gratitude for these amazing women, we’d like to share our experience walking the walk.

For this part of our journey, we’d like to introduce you to Liz G, our amazing Call Center Manager and self-proclaimed “crazy cat-lady”. Liz was among nine team members who visited Kenya through our partnership with Clearly’s Change the View and Free the Children, now We.org, to help remove barriers to vision health and vision correction. Over the next few weeks we will be sharing Liz’s reflections of the team’s time spent with the communities in South Narok, Kenya.

Being given this amazing and unique opportunity to visit one of the Mama’s homes and learn about her way of life was so eye opening and we felt so lucky to have been given the chance to meet this inspiring woman. Not only did she provide for her family with her cattle, she also took care of all the household duties, which included gathering water from the river multiple times a day. The walk up to her home was amazing and surreal as we got to see the community up close and personal as we passed others herding their donkeys or cattle and watched children playing in the fields. There was even a small hut labeled as a movie theatre of some sort. It had rained earlier so the roads were muddy and difficult to walk in, so it’s even more amazing to think that heavy water jugs are carried multiple times daily in the rain or sun!

After meeting the Mama, she was so proud to show us her home as they had recently just built a new addition that gave them more reliable shelter and was decorated with newspapers and pictures. Shortly after, our group was taken to the nearby river with running water where the mamas traditionally fill large jugs of water to bring home to use for the agriculture. It was only about a 10-15 minute walk but once those jugs were full of water it was definitely challenging!

As we took off in pairs back to the house with the jugs strapped to us using the front of our foreheads to help distribute the weight and backs to support the rest, it really sunk in and made us quickly realize that this is extremely challenging. The fact that the women in the community did that water walk multiple times a day made us realize how very fortunate we are to have easy access to water and it was really a testament to what they do for their families.

The women in these communities were so talented and intelligent but also physically strong and capable and I was very inspired by them. Although it felt good to be able to help the Mama that day with her water duties, it made me think about the 364 other days a year that she and her daughter have to do this and it really put things into perspective. Being able to help even just one family can make a huge difference and I was so proud to have been involved with Free the Children who are constantly looking for ways to partner and  improve lives in developing countries.

Eye Health | Cataracts & the Importance of Sunglasses

Whether you live in Toronto or Vancouver, New York or London, winter has come to the Northern hemisphere! The chilly temperatures encourage us to wear our coziest hats (toques in Canada, eh), scarfs, and mittens. And while we are busy bundling our bodies to protect from freezing temperatures in the North, we often forget that harmful UV rays usually associated with the sun, are still being emitted and bouncing through our atmosphere all year round. So as you head out on your next snow adventure, be it shredding at Earl Bales or snowshoeing Mt. Seymour, please don’t forget your UV protective sunglasses!

To warm your hearts on this chilly Flashback Friday, we’d like to share another story from our last trip to Kenya with Canadian-based NGO Free the Children. Over the last few weeks, we have been sharing our experiences planning, executing and partnering with communities in South Narok, to help support vision health awareness and vision correction accessibility. We’d like to take the opportunity to thank Claudia Rojas, Optician, and all round do-gooder for her story and expert advice below. We hope you enjoy this week’s story.

Armed with excitement, glasses, vision testing charts, and bundles of emotions, our Clearly team arrived at the Kishon Medical Clinic with a mission: to make vision correction accessible to as many people as we could through eye exams and eyeglasses. However, we soon came to realize we had a second mission: to educate as many people as we could on the importance of sun protection.

We conducted vision screenings for many people who had long been waiting for us to help them see. It was extremely gratifying each time that we were able to see someone smile because they could finally see what they had been missing with a pair of corrective glasses. Among these people, many had other eye conditions such as eye infections, due to the lack of clean water and environmental factors, but, we were astonished to see the amount of young people with eye conditions due to sun damage. We noted a disproportional number of cataracts forming in many people under the age of 40, including children.

Over 75% of all blindness in Kenya is either preventable or treatable. In fact, the most common cause of both blindness and visual impairment in Kenya is cataracts, accounting for 38% of all vision loss. (You can find out more about this at http://www.iapb.org/vision-2020)

Cataracts are caused by a buildup of protein that clouds the crystalline lens inside the eye, leading to blurred vision and eventual blindness. Direct contact with sunlight for even short periods of time can lead to several long-term eye health problems – many of which begin symptom-free. Most of us think of cataracts as something that just affects older people. However, in a lot of developing countries, especially those along the equator, it is a huge problem for children as well. In most cases this is due to the amount of sun exposure they experience while being outdoors, and the lack of sun wear such as a hat or sunglasses to protect their eyes. In fact, because children spend more time outdoors, they receive approximately three times the annual adult dose of UV. The longer one is exposed to UV rays, the higher the chances of cataracts to form. 

Given our experience with the prevalence of cataracts seen at Kishon, it was imperative to share the importance of protecting young eyes from the sun, and we found the perfect opportunity during our visit to the Kisaruni Girls Secondary School. We were there to conduct vision screenings for the girls and provided those in need with corrective eyewear. It was also a great opportunity to provide them with sunglasses, and the opportunity to speak with the girls as a group about why it is important to wear the sunglasses that they now had, and if possible, a wide brim hat to protect their eyes.

There are many factors that will continue to contribute to the need for healthcare and social outreach in developing countries such as Kenya, and it all starts with the basics. One of the most important basics being education, and I am forever grateful to have been given the opportunity to share some of my knowledge with a group of amazingly bright girls, who were eager to improve the quality of their lives.

The spirit of a child belongs in a bright and colorful world, and there is no room for cataracts there.

Contributed by: Claudia Rojas, Optician

Community Outreach | Clearly Meets the Future Grads of Kisaruni Secondary School in Kenya

For our ThrowBackThursday today we give thanks to our Clearly teammates Ryan and Geri for sharing their memories of meeting the amazing young girls at Free the Children‘s Kisaruni Secondary School in Kenya. These intelligent and poised young women all have bright futures ahead! For our part, the Clearly Team wanted to ensure these girls had every opportunity to also literally see their full potential by bringing awareness and access to vision health and vision correction. We hope you enjoy reading Ryan and Geri’s story below!

Kisaruni means “a peaceful place” in both Maasai and Kipsigis languages. Kisaruni focuses on community and empowering curriculum that provides girls with opportunities to excel. These girls strive to build on their cultural values, to be leaders in their communities, to value diversity and encourage active learning.

We had the chance to go to Kisaruni school around mid-afternoon on our 5^th day in Kenya. The weather turned from sunny with a patch of clouds to gray and dark. About a minute after the girls began their tour with us, thunder, lightning, and heavy rain moved in. We could hardly hear their voices, but the girls were the picture of professionalism and we’re determined to introduce us to their school.  Each student told us a little bit about each of their classes, from chemistry and computer works to reading all kinds of books.  I was amazed at the pride and respect these students had for their school. These girls inspired us with their dedication to learning and their focus on the future.

While doing vision screening in their cafeteria, we came across one of the girls who wasn’t able to read the test sheet on the wall, and none of the glasses we tried on her were helping her vision at all. With Claudia, our Head Optician, and one of the teacher’s help, we determined that she had dyslexia and was having a hard time interpreting the vision screening test as a result. At that point, we were able to help refer her and schedule her for an eye exam at the Kishon Health Clinic to determine the proper correction she needed for her vision.

As we reflect on our experience in Kenya, we appreciate that we didn’t always have the answer, but by bringing awareness to vision health and vision correction we have been successful starting the conversation and next steps to ensure that vision health is addressed. We are so grateful to have met these girls and to have been able to help prioritize their vision needs. We were blown away by their amazing potential and hopefully we left them seeing their full potential as well.  

Have questions about Change the View or want to know more about Clearly’s impact in Kenya? Please email info@changetheview.org for more information.  

Eye Health | A Chance Encounter, Two Lives Changed: Claudia’s Story

Today’s #ThrowBackThursday is a story of chance encounters and lives changed through partnership, vision health awareness and correction. We were fortunate to have the lovely and amazing Claudia Rojas, Optician & Retail Operation extraordinaire, bring her optical expertise with the team to Kenya. Together Clearly’s Change the View and Free the Children teams helped support local health professionals in South Narok, Kenya, screen and treat local patients’ vision concerns.

This is Claudia’s story: 

I was fortunate to cross paths with a child whose eyes spoke louder than the few words he could speak. Upon meeting this beautiful baby, I further understood the purpose of our presence here in Kenya.

During our second day of screening at Kishon Medical Center, while a woman was being screened, I was admiring the beautiful child that she carried in her arms. I looked closer into the child’s eyes as he looked into the distance, and that’s when I recognized the signs of Retinoblastoma.

Retinoblastoma (RB) is the most common eye cancer observed in children. It affects the retina and if left untreated can result in blindness and in severe cases, requires the removal of the eye. Fortunately, Retinoblastoma is still quite rare and is diagnosed in approximately 1 in every 20,000 children.

Eye Care Professionals can help pre-screen for Retinoblastoma in children as young as three months with the goal of early detection. Early detection can help maximize the visual outcome and the quality of life of the affected child. Fortunately, with appropriate medical help, the survival rate for affected children is 96%.

The first sign of retinoblastoma is a strange light or whiteness reflected in the pupil of the eye under certain lighting conditions. This whiteness has been described as similar to a cat’s eye. In this case, the reflection seen in the pupil is actually the white surface of the tumor within the eye.

I could see these signs in both of the child’s eyes, so we immediately took the mother to have her child examined by the Ophthalmologist who had arrived from Nairobi to assist. I spoke with him later that day and he confirmed that the child did have Retinoblastoma. Both the clinic Optometrist and Ophthalmologist committed themselves to making sure to follow up with the mother in order to provide the child with the appropriate treatment in Nairobi.

I cannot express how humbled and grateful I was for the opportunity to identify this issue and help change the course of this young child’s life. I am so proud of the entire team that joined me in this amazing experience and our partners who will help ensure the vision health of their communities. 

Community Report | Clearly Goes to Kenya: An Update with Abel Mwema

Two years ago we introduced you to Abel Mwema, a compassionate doctor and community member that we met through our partnership with Free the Children in South Narok, Kenya. At that time, Abel had just recently completed additional training in ophthalmology, and was responsible for screening, assessing, diagnosing, treating and prescribing patients with eyeglasses. This additional care and service was bridging the gap for those patients who might otherwise not have access to, or might have to travel long distances for this type of care.  

We had the opportunity to catch up with Abel two years later to find out how he has continued to help people see more clearly and to hear his future plans for vision health access in his community. For this #ThrowBackThursday our CFO Craig Lennox shares his experience catching up with Abel, now a few years into his optical specialization!  

I had the pleasure of spending an hour with Abel after a great tour of Kishon Health Clinic. Abel has been working with Free the Children for approximately 4 years. He initially worked at the Baraka Health Clinic in the Narok South District of Kenya, and then transferred to Kishon in 2013. Abel finished medical school in 2009 and is now in charge of Kishon Health Clinic which has 2 clinic officers, 2 nurses and 1 lab technician.

When Abel first joined the team at Kishon, he noticed many patients coming in with eye issues. At the time, Kishon lacked the optometry expertise, so he referred patients to other hospitals which were government run. Narok District Hospital is 45 km’s away and Tenwek Mission Hospital is 70 km’s away. Traveling to these hospitals was not easy for local residents. Abel found that many patients would ultimately come back to Kishon without having issues treated because it was not easy for them to travel to these hospitals, and for the ones that did, these hospitals also seemed to lack knowledge and supplies. In 2013 Abel pursued optometry and completed a professional course, which was supported by Clearly & Change the View. This allowed Abel and Kishon to diagnose and do proper referrals, including diagnosing cataracts. During our team’s visit to the health clinic, a total of 53 cataract cases were diagnosed.

Today, Kishon is completing comprehensive eye exams, and dispensing glasses and eye drops. Abel noted that Kishon has become known as the “Eye Hospital” in the area due to clinic services and building awareness. While Kishon and Abel have been successful at building awareness in the area, he is also committed to providing access to those in remote areas. Abel developed an outreach program through Kishon and travels to remote areas on Fridays. The model was created based on the realization that many patients were traveling long distances to come to Kishon and transportation and cost was often a barrier to come back for proper follow up appointments. During these remote visits, Abel typically sees 40-50 patients a day during visits and brings portable optical equipment, eye drops and glasses (plano sun, Rx glasses and readers) provided by Clearly.

I was really impressed with Abel’s knowledge and commitment to Kishon and Free The Children. We spoke briefly about his future and he was excited to be starting a management program in Nairobi in January (2016), and then planned to return to Kishon with added experience and ideas for the health clinic. Abel also mentioned that he has considered pursuing a 3-year Ophthalmology Program so he could expand Kishon’s scope of practice to do cataract surgeries and other procedures in-house (rather than relying on remote Ophthalmologists to travel to Kishon from Nairobi).

We’d like to thank Abel, Free the Children and the amazing staff at Baraka and Kishon Health Clinics for opening their doors and hearts to the Clearly Team. We can’t wait for the next update, and to hear about the great progress in vision health and correction that comes from Abel’s vision and leadership.

Community Outreach | The Logistics of an International Vision Program; Clearly Goes to Kenya

For today’s #throwbackthursday allow us to introduce Simon Fox, Irishman, football aficionado (the real kind of football, or so he says), guitar player, and Lab Production Shift Supervisor here at Clearly. Simon was one of nine team members who traveled to Kenya last November continuing our partnership and support of a vision program with Free the Children. Trips such as these take a lot of planning and preparation, as Simon will recount. Take a journey with us and read below to hear more about the team’s time on the Masai Mara, and all of the effort that has made this past trip a success:

It’s hard to believe it has been twelve months since the trip. Our Kenyan adventure is something I will never forget. Reflecting on the experience, it’s incredible to see the amount of work that goes into these trips. There is so much planning, preparation, coordination and communication involved. There was so much to do, and looking back, also so little time.

Many folks played a role in the pre-trip planning stages. From arranging itineraries, flights, and accommodations, to the vaccinations, visas, and optical training and education.

On top of all of these activities, we also had to manufacture 1500 pairs of glasses and then transport them over 14,000km across the world. And, we had a little over a month to make this happen. No biggie…

It was a daunting challenge, but over the course of a month, day by day, and on top of our everyday workloads, we made it happen.

When it came down to it, we had great help throughout. Our Production Manager and another colleague from the Lab got up at 4:00 AM to bring 16 huge duffle bags in their jeeps to their airport. Now that was as Team Clearly as you get!

It was a not an easy task to bring this all together and make this as successful as it was. But it is a shining example of the awesome people we work with and an amazing team effort.

When we arrived on the ground in Nairobi I remember being unsure of what to expect going through customs, especially with our 16 duffle bags of glasses and optical products, in such a faraway country. Thankfully our Head Optician, Claudia, was there to lead the way and navigate us through the process.

The first day setting up the glasses was interesting. We had talked about how we were going to set up while we were in Vancouver, but on the ground in the Masai Mara it was a different story, and we had to call it as we saw it. We were not completely sure how best to set up the product and where the different types of eyewear should go. But we came up with a setup and overall it worked. We saw all the patients that showed up and were pretty efficient about it and there was not too many bottlenecks.

The next day were a different beast altogether. We talked about how we could improve the set up based on what we noticed the day previously. So when we arrived at Kishon, we strategically moved around the products and table set up and it work liked a charm. We were much more organized and efficient and we got to examine and dispense glasses to everyone that showed up again. It was a great feeling. We were in the zone.

The product remained in Kishson overnight waiting for us to arrive for our third and final day. After Kishon we had to load all the product on to our awesome bus and bring it to our next location, Esononi. We set up quickly. Screened everyone quickly and load up again quickly. At this point we were in the zone. The weather changed from beautiful blue skies to overcast in over the next hour. There was rain a coming.

We arrived in Kisaruni late afternoon. Shortly after we arrived, the heavens opened up. Boy did it rain! We screened in Kisaruni and packed up the gear for one last time. It was going on the truck and would be staying in Kishon. We would only be taking the bags back. The remaining prescription eyeglasses were left with the amazing staff and doctors at Kishon Health Center to continue to fulfill our shared mission: Better Vision For Everyone.