Vision for Education - Rotary Club of Makati

If you wear prescription eyeglasses, as most of us do, you know
how it feels when you misplace them, even for just a few minutes. You
feel disoriented, and soon your eyes and head begin to throb, and
there’s precious little you can do. When you find them, and put them
back on, the relief is beyond description. Whew!
Imagine how it is for a child in school who is visually deficient,
or worse, virtually blind. S/he can’t see, let alone read, what’s on the
blackboard, or on the flipcharts; can’t make out the characters on a
book; can’t read the questions on a test paper—in short, can’t follow
the lessons at all. How, then, can the child learn? How, indeed, in a
situation like this, can any learning take place?
This was what spurred Francis Macatulad, chairman of the Teacher
Training Program and Principal Empowerment Program, to initiate the
Vision for Education Project, under which children with poor eyesight
undergo refraction tests and are given free eyeglasses.
Under the program, the Club partners with optical companies and
optometrists to administer eye tests to pupils with eye problems
and to manufacture custom-made eyeglasses for them. The Club
has partnered with two organizations that supply the eyeglasses:
ABC Foundation and Hollywood Optical/Dr. Larry Daswani,
the latter through the efforts of Dayal Nandwani. The project is
undertaken in coordination with the Ateneo Center for Educational
Development (ACED), the Club’s partner in two educational program,
and the concerned district supervisor of the Department of Education
(Dep-Ed).

A report written by Francis Macatulad describes the
project this way:
“This program has been a literal eye-opener for
members of the Rotary Club of Makati. It was discovered
that many students with low grades had eye problems---
their poor performance in school could be linked to poor
eyesight and the solution for improving their grades could
be as simple as giving them eyeglasses. It was very evident
that eyeglasses have the power to transform the children’s
lives and create a positive effect on their academic
performance. The impact is very dramatic---the children’s
eyes instantly light up the moment they try on their new
eyewear.
“Among the notable highlights of the program
was the case of the family of five who all had severe eye
problems and received glasses from the Club that were
specially-ordered from a Hong Kong specialty optical
shop. Several other children also were diagnosed with eye
problems that required further tests and were referred to
ophthalmologists for correction or surgery.”
Started in RY 2009-2010 under the watch of then
Pres. Felix Amparo, the program has so far benefited over
1,100 vision-impaired pupils in seven public elementary
schools in Paranaque City—200 in the initial module at the
Col. E. de Leon Elementary School during the term of PP
Felix Amparo, with ABC Foundation as partner; 630 in four
modules under PP Jun Rojas: at Sto. Nino, in partnership
with the ABC Foundation, and Sampaloc Site II, Tambo,
and Maville elementary schools, with Hollywood Optical
as partner; and this year, 300 so far, at La Huerta and San
Antonio elementary schools, with the ABC Foundation as
partner. Let me point out here that in the three modules
where we partnered with Hollywood Optical, Dr. Daswani
provided his shop’s services and 430 pairs of eyeglasses,
free of charge.
In order to have a measure of the benefits of the
project, and in keeping with this year’s focus on post
evaluation of projects to see if they are meeting their
objectives, the Vision for Education Committee, in
coordination with the Club’s other education programs,
will be tracking the performance of the recipients to
monitor their academic performance and assess how
helpful their improved eyesight has been on their studies.
As a bonus, the children will be given story books from the
Club’s Books Across the Seas program to encourage them
to make optimal use of their newly-improved eyesight
and, hopefully, develop an interest in reading and a love
for learning.
The Vision of Education project has changed the
lives of many a schoolchild, given them hope, and allowed
them to see the world with new eyes.