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.