Dear Ms. Guzon,

In May 2011 EYEsee donated 100 pairs of eyeglasses to PeopleWeaver to distribute to the people living at the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement. PeopleWeaver is a non-profit organization established to provide economic assistance, such as microcredit loans, to impoverished women in developing countries. Currently, our efforts are focused on the women refugees living in the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement in Uganda.

We traveled to Uganda in May. The eyeglasses distribution was a huge success. We scheduled the distribution to take place after our annual microcredit meeting. The meeting is attended by the women who have received loans, women who hope to receive loans, project leaders, community members and community leaders.

While the focus of our distribution was the microcredit women, we had enough glasses to also give to the people in the communities who needed them. Many people knew the magnification number they needed. For those who didn’t, we gave printed material and they tried on glasses until they found the best magnification for their eyes. The majority of people needed magnification of 1.25 to 2.25.

For the first time, we traveled to Bunagana in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to explore the possibility of giving microcredit loans there. This is the area many of the Kyangwali refugees we work with are from. We took about 20 pairs of glasses to Bunagana. We did not announce we had the glasses, but after giving a pair to one person, the word spread quickly and people started showing up at our door each morning and throughout the day. We were told people were coming days after we left.

There was a man in his 90s who tried on several pairs of glasses. After he chose the best pair for his eyes, he asked for one of our plastic bags and carefully put his glasses in it for safekeeping. I’m sure the glasses will be used for the rest of his life and, after his death, will be saved for someone else. After all the glasses had been distributed, the next morning a man came to where we were staying. When we told him we didn’t have any more glasses, he said he had walked miles. I was alarmed when he dropped to his knees pleading for glasses!

The overwhelming response to the availability of eyeglasses was a surprise to us. In the past when we’ve traveled to Uganda, we’ve taken a variety of needed items—such as birthing kits, vitamins, anti-parasite medication, Crocs, etc. Of all the things we’ve taken it’s obvious eyeglasses are desperately needed, greatly appreciated and one of the best uses of our limited baggage space.

Jeanne Ratzloff, PeopleWeaver President

On behalf of St. Philip Benizi Catholic Church and the people served by our sister parish in Honduras please accept our thanks for the reading glasses your organization provided for our June 7-14, 2011 mission visit to our sister parish, Santa Ana, in Campamento, Department of Olancho, Honduras.

Fr. Abelardo Huanaca, associate pastor of St. Philip Benizi Catholic Church, led a group of eleven pilgrims on this mission visit. This was St. Philip’s fifteenth mission visit with the Santa Ana parish. The primary purpose of this visit was to strengthen the bonds of friendship between our two parishes – which we did!

We distributed a little over 650 pair of reading glasses during our visit. Nearly all were sized and handed directly to people in remote and impoverished villages and communities. We obtained 600 pair from NW Lions Eyeglass Recycling Center and 156 pair from EYEsee - Vision for the World. An additional 50 or so were donated by St. Philip's parishioners. We also included approximately 100 pair of glasses left in Honduras from the 2010 mission visit.

We took reading glasses with us everywhere we visited—villages, small towns, communities, ‘a spot in the road’, as well as, a local senior’s center. We would find a convenient spot and set up our reading glasses distribution point—sometimes inside a chapel or other building and sometimes outdoors. We used a modified hand-held chart, converted into Spanish with numbers and symbols, to assess our ‘patients’ needs. Some of our pilgrims spoke Spanish and we were augmented by several Santa Ana church members.

We formally and informally set up shop around twenty times. As word got out, we also distributed reading glasses from our lodging area on the Santa Ana church property. In some cases we gave 3-4 pair of random sized reading glasses to a wife for her husband who was working in the fields. We figured that if he could not use them another family member or an extended family member could use them.

Throughout the week, the group participated in a variety of activities with the children, youth and adults of Santa Ana parish, as well as, four medical missions to outlying areas—most days were from sun-up to well past sun-down.

Our visit was full and our experiences were most moving. Our pilgrims experienced first-hand the people and culture of the Santa Ana parish community and also renewed and strengthened the connection and covenant relationship between the two parishes. These visits are a most graceful, life-changing experience of a lifetime.

The generous acts of so many of our parishioners and friends, enabled these pilgrims to take over 1,000 pounds of donated toys, hand-made clothing, new and used clothing, footwear, school supplies, rosaries, necklaces, assorted medicines, instant film, reading eyeglasses and religious items for their parish. These gifts were handed directly by our pilgrims.

The language barrier was not a problem—smiles are understood in any language. Pilgrims enjoyed the beautiful people, gorgeous scenery, time spent with fellow pilgrims and the local community, as well as tours of the local community, surrounding towns and landmarks. We attended worship at the church and in community chapels, we told stories, and enjoyed the smiles and love of new brothers and sisters. We saw a lifestyle very different from our own, yet realized just how similar our lives really are—our fears and concerns, our hopes and dreams, and the importance of relationships.

Thanks again for your support and may God bless you for your ministry and your generosity. We hope to work with you again next year.

This was our 11th mission to the Philippines, and no doubt the most challenging medical vision mission ever for EyeCare WeCare Foundation and its 25 volunteers. During this mission, we crossed many islands by transporting EyeCare WeCare’s Clinic on Wheels in a ferry boat from the Visayas to the Luzon region. Together with 25 Filipino volunteers, we traveled more than 24 hours of land and sea combine.

The getting to the Luzon was one of the biggest obstacles that the Foundation has ever encountered. The quote that we received from the Super Ferry was nearly $10,000 US dollars round trip to transport the mobile clinic from Bacolod to Manila (Over 500 Nautical Miles) and the 25 volunteers. We considered crossing three large islands and taking three small ferry boats each way that probably take over 2 days and would be very hard on the mobile clinic to cross the mountainous Islands. It would be considerably less to do so somewhere in the $3,500 range figuring there were no repairs. We appealed to the Philippine Coast Guard to transport it for us. We are a 100% voluntary organization and operate on a small budget. At the very last minute (we are talking about 48 hours before we left), Negros Navigation informed us that It would help sponsor this medical mission and didn't offer to do it free, but it reduced the fare immensely and even surprised us by presenting a banner to the Foundation while we were waiting to board the Giant ferry boat.

We left Bacolod at 7:00 PM on May 23, 2010 and arrived in Manila at 6:00PM the mobile clinic was unloaded, we survived rush hour traffic in Manila and finally arrived in Macabebe around 9 PM. The mobile clinic was parked at the clinic site and the volunteers were taken to their great accommodations with Susan Bautista Damilao's family. The next 5 days would become historic. The fact that we were in on venue for 5 full days, we did not need to set up the mobile clinic each morning and tear down and move that night. It gave us as much as 3 hours more of clinic. The lunches our volunteers and the local volunteers were served at a Church next door. The meals provided the volunteers with energy to see around 300 patients per day. The meals and lodging for 5 days for 25 volunteers was also a very large undertaking. Susan Bautista Damilao was up for the task and exceeded all expectations. The Foundation and its volunteers are extremely grateful for the unbelievable hospitality and expense that the Damilao's provided EyeCare WeCare Foundation during the stay and the day following the medical mission.

A total of 1,411 patients received eyeglasses during this mission. We had lots of pictures that tell their own story. With every single medical vision mission there are several persons that are worth the complete trip in themselves and this medical mission was no different. The young man below came in one late afternoon and he was found to have around a -9.00 correction both eyes. I asked him where his previous glasses were, he replied that he had never seen an eye doctor because his parents were poor. He tried attending school, but never completed the first grade because he could not see anything that the teacher put on the board even if he sat in the front. The pictures of him before and after speak for themselves.

We made two trips to the Philippines this year, on January 11-20, 2010 (1,769 indigents received eyeglasses) and on May 24-28, 2010 (1,411 indigents received eyeglasses), bringing the Foundation’s total beneficiaries to 13,910 indigents for the last five years.

I wanted to write and express appreciation for the glasses we received and were able to take on our trip to Uganda in May. It was a very successful trip. We had three doctors, one a pediatrician which blessed the orphanage dearly as she was able to provide checkups to the 98 children who reside there. We also had three nurses and three lay people.

We arrived in Uganda 24 hours after we started our trip and were quite exhausted so the beds at our guest house were very welcomed. It is a three hour trip from the airport to Good Shepherd’s Fold Orphanage and we arrived to a grand welcome of singing, dancing, and many hugs all around. It takes a couple days to sort thru all the supplies, pick up new medicine in Jinja Africa and to arrange the church into a clinic. We had four days of clinic, we started on Wednesday and work 12 hours that day and the following Thursday and ten hours on Friday. Thankfully we had two days over the weekend to recover and to worship and share time with our missionary friends. Monday was our last day and when it was all said and done we had treated almost 1,100 men, women and children.

The glasses were a great success and desperately needed. We had purchased 50 different strength reading glasses and they were all gone within two days. The glasses your team donated were a little more complicated to hand out as we did not know the strengths of the glasses or the strength of the glasses each person needed. However the African people are very accommodating and appreciative of anything they get so they patiently tried on glasses until they found a pair that worked. The enclosed pictures show a young woman who came last year and we did not have any glasses that worked for her so it was a blessing this year for her to be able to leave wearing glasses in which she could see off into the distance.

We take so much for granted in the United States. We cannot see so we make an appointment with the eye doctor and within a few weeks we have glasses and our life goes on. The sunglasses were also a very welcomed relief as we had many older people with cataracts and the sun is very strong there so they would often get headaches and eye pain. We handed out all the sunglasses within a few days. All the glasses were left in the clinic at GSF and the nurse there will continue to hand them out over the next few years.

The enclosed pictures show some of the people who received glasses, the church where we have our clinics and some of the people who came and were seen. I would have liked to have gotten more pictures of people with their glasses but as you can see it was quite busy and left little time for picture taking.

Again I and the team and all the people at GSF wish to express our thanks to your group for collecting and distributing the glasses. Everyone deserves to be able to see as clearly as possible.

This was a grace filled experience for all– pilgrims and locals. We were amazed when we were welcomed and joined by the communities during the many different activities in which we participated. The language barrier was not a problem—smiles are understood in any language. Pilgrims enjoyed the beautiful people, gorgeous scenery, time spent with fellow pilgrims and the local community, as well as tours of the local community, surrounding towns and landmarks. We attended worship at the church and in community chapels, we told stories, and enjoyed the smiles and love of new brothers and sisters. We saw a lifestyle very different from our own, yet realized just how similar our lives really are—our fears and concerns, our hopes and dreams, and the importance of relationships. Being part of this visit was definitely a life-changing experience.

To each of our reading glasses donors, thanks again for your support and may God bless you for your ministry and your generosity.

Charles Ahn. M.D. (Chicago, IL) led this two-week mission From January 15-29. He and six other team members performed 192 cataract surgeries and screened close to 400 patients.

Patients lined the halls to see the specialists. Many of the patients were totally blind from cataracts. They were led into the clinic and the next day, they were able to walk away by themselves. Many of our patients had dense white cataracts which is caused by diabetes and made the surgeries challenging. A good percentage of our patients also showed retinal damage due to diabetes. The number of surgeries that were performed exceeded expectations and extra supplies had to be shipped in.

This was Dr. Ahn's first medical mission. He said, 'We are so blessed and privileged in this country and I felt that it is our responsibility to use the skills and resources that we have to provide relief and assistance to those that are suffering . . . The patients didn't have much and were so grateful for the care they received. It was truly a privilege to be able to provide the care that we did for the people of Ebeye.'