Solar powered glasses?

24/09/2015

Developing the satellite community eye centre has been a challenge. Having to a share a clinic with a less than helpful (read: downright obstructive) government nurse has made progress impossible. We have decided to relocate the Eye Centre to our main clinic base in Enekorogha until the Community Council in question cuts some teeth and gets the situation in order.



This whole project is really underpinned and designed by our friends at Mission For Vision, a UK Christian Mission that has a long experience of providing refraction and bespoke glasses in rural parts of Africa. Ian Squire, the Founder has kindly partnered with us to get this initiative off the ground. He bring his expertise and awareness that a resource poor area is a very real challenge with respect to power, water, and maintenance of high end sophisticated equipment. 



He has designed a lens cutter that is ideal for our environment, The Pens Lens is the first solar powered lens cutting machine, small enough to be carried in hand luggage, yet tough enough to cope with harsh environments and its low tech design keeps maintenance to a minimum. With practice a technician should be able to make four or five pairs of glasses on it per hour. 

This November we will be undertaking a joint camp to advance training of our community eye workers and testing the machines capability.