The Vision Catalyst Fund Announces Inaugural Financial Grants for Its Eye Health Accelerator Programme
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Vision Catalyst Fund (VCF) is thrilled to announce the recipients of its Eye Health Accelerator Grants. The VCF has awarded grants totalling £470,000 to the Clinton Health Access Initiative, VisionSpring, the International Centre for Eye Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and RestoringVision. These four recipients emerged from 58 concept notes showcasing exceptional dedication to principles that align with the VCF's mission.
Reflecting the VCF’s commitment to raising capital differently, the funds for these grants were generated using an investment product co-created with P1 Capital, a UK based investment firm, to develop an Eye Health Accelerator Bond. This simple financial product empowers an investor to deploy at least 4% of their 8% return from a bond towards eye health programmes through the VCF. The VCF aims to offer more and larger grants as the investment in the bond grows in the coming year.
The Chief Executive of the Vision Catalyst Fund, Dr Andrew Cooper, said, “I am excited to introduce the Eye Health Accelerator Grants, an initiative funded by our first financial product made possible by a first investment from the David and Molly Pyott Foundation. These grants are designed to propel scale and foster collaboration within countries. By providing targeted support to promising models, we aspire to catalyse a collaborative ecosystem where innovation flourishes, and the collective effort lights the path towards widespread and sustainable improvements in eye health.”
The funded programmes demonstrate the following key characteristics:
Potential Route to Scale: A clear and promising pathway to scale, indicating the potential for a broad and sustainable impact on eye health.
Catalytic Opportunities: Catalytic opportunities within the programme demonstrate the ability to spark transformative change and innovation within the eye health sector.
Risk and System Change: Initiatives that embrace a level of risk which are capable of putting in motion significant systemic changes, fostering a culture of innovation and adaptability in addressing eye health challenges.
Government Commitments and Leverage Opportunities: Alignment with government commitments and strategically leveraging opportunities to maximise impact.
Dr Astrid Bonfield, Chair of the Vision Catalyst Fund, remarked, “This is a landmark day for the Vision Catalyst Fund. When we embarked on the journey, we said we wanted to raise the money differently and fund differently; this initiative represents an opportunity to create a step change in ending the vision crisis.”
For media inquiries, please contact:
Adam Askew
info@visioncatalystfund.org
07799 665072
Summary of the Grants
Integrating vision into childhood and newborn care
International Centre for Eye Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine with Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre | Tanzania | £200,000
In 2019, the International Centre for Eye Health and Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre successfully piloted training for primary health workers (PHWs) in eye health, demonstrating the potential to identify and treat previously unnoticed eye conditions in thousands of children. With the grant, the programme intends to scale up by integrating eye health into the widely used WHO/UNICEF Integrated Management of Childhood and Newborn Illnesses (IMNCI) guidelines in Tanzania, training additional PHWs, and providing essential eye care to at least 10,000 children, with the ultimate goal of creating a global blueprint for incorporating eye health into child healthcare.
Bringing reading glasses into Peru’s pension programme
RestoringVision | Peru | £50,000
RestoringVision's innovative programme, launched in 2019 in partnership with MSH Peru, is dedicated to providing vision screenings and reading glasses to ageing individuals supported by Peru's PENSIÓN 65 Program, established as a safety net for those aged 65 and above in extreme poverty. Starting as a pilot reaching 55,000 individuals in 2021, the programme is scaling to serve 500,000 ageing Peruvians from 2022-2024, thanks to a donation of eyeglasses from the Vision Catalyst Fund (VCF) and the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation. With the new Eye Health Accelerator Grant, RestoringVision aims to enhance its programme by focusing on sustainability, generating evidence of impact for advocacy, and identifying potential countries for replication, ultimately striving to reach millions more people living in extreme poverty globally.
Digitally enabling eye health services for rural communities
Clinton Health Access Initiative with Vula Mobile | South Africa | £100,000
The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), in collaboration with Vula Mobile Health Care, will partner with the South African government to improve primary eye care services. Through innovative approaches, local healthcare workers in primary healthcare facilities will be trained to conduct basic vision screening examinations using mobile-based tools like Vula Vision. This task shifting approach aims to broaden service coverage, particularly in rural settings where staff shortages have hindered accessibility. For patients requiring advanced care, the Vula Health Referral and Advice system will ensure a smooth pathway for patients requiring specialised care, as well as tracking and monitoring the referral progress, fostering communication between primary health care facilities and eye care specialists, ultimately improving patient treatment.
People Centred Eye Health Services for Ugandan Communities
VisionSpring | Uganda | £120,000
The Clear Vision Collective (CVC) - comprised of the Ministry of Health of Uganda, Dr Arunga Eye Hospital, BRAC, Clinton Health Access Initiative, Light for the World and VisionSpring – will introduce sight tests and reading glasses into government primary care and community services for the first time. In parallel, CVC members will deploy their unique models and complementary capabilities to establish Uganda’s first clear vision district, inclusive of school screening, cataract surgery and referral for other eye conditions. As a result, 800,000 people will gain access to vision services in communities engaged in near vision intensive agriculture, artisan craft and skilled trades.
More about the partners:
The Vision Catalyst Fund is building a global fund for vision. We are a funder for eye health services in lower and middle-income countries. Our funding is deployed where it can be catalytic, taking calculated risks to meet the needs of the vision crisis in new ways. This may be by backing market-based solutions or strengthening the systems that improve people’s access to eye health services. We fund programmes that have the potential to scale, working across multiple sectors and becoming sustainable in the future.
The International Centre for Eye Health (ICEH) is a collaborative research and education centre based at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Our vision is to Improve Eye Health Worldwide. Working predominantly through partnerships in low and middle-income countries, we aim to improve eye health capacity, services and policy. Alumni from 188 countries have studied eye health courses at ICEH. For more information, please visit: iceh.lshtm.ac.uk
The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organisation committed to saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low and middle-income countries, while strengthening the capabilities of governments and the private sector in those countries to create and sustain high-quality health systems that can succeed without our assistance. For more information, visit: www.clintonhealthaccess.org
Vula Mobile uses its technology and application ecosystem to solve the problem of communication between health workers and specialists. Vula connects health workers to the right specialist so the appropriate action is taken for the patient. This results in patients gaining access to specialist medical services, particularly in underserved areas throughout South Africa. Specialists can optimise their time receiving referrals from primary health workers in a structured manner, while health workers can use the referral and communication data to inform strategic decision-making. Giving health workers a digital connection to facilitate referrals capacitates the health service from service delivery at ground level to strategic planning. For more information, please visit: www.vulamobile.com
RestoringVision is a global nonprofit dedicated to ending the global vision crisis. The organisation is committed to creating equitable access to vision services and eyeglasses, particularly for individuals living on less than $2 a day. One billion people have a vision impairment that could have been prevented or is yet to be addressed, 81% of which could be corrected with a pair of reading glasses. We work to solve this global crisis by partnering with our unparalleled network of more than 3,000 NGOs and government partners to provide life changing vision screenings and eyeglasses to millions of people who could not access them otherwise. RestoringVision has reached more than 25 million people in 147 countries since 2003. For more information, visit restoringvision.org.
Founded in 2001, VisionSpring is the social enterprise accelerating the use of eyeglasses in emerging and frontier markets. Our mission is to increase lifelong earnings, learning, safety, and well-being through eyeglasses for people vulnerable to poverty. We believe in the wonder of clear vision for everyone and envision a world in which all who need glasses will have them to see well and do well by 2050. As of 2022, VisionSpring corrected the vision of more than 10 million people living on less than $4 per day, unlocking more than $2 billion in income earning potential. VisionSpring has received honours from the Skoll Foundation, Aspen Institute, World Bank, Duke University, and Tribeca Film Festival, among others. Our work has been covered by BBC | The New York Times | The Economist | The Lancet, and more. www.visionspring.org
ENDS
Eye health services at Themba Regional Hospital in Mpumalanga Province. Photo courtesy of Clinton Health Access Initiative South Africa.