The following story was written by Khanindra Kalita, VisionSpring Sales Manager in India.

Ms. Sumana was born in pre-independence India in the erstwhile Nizam’s estate (Hyderabad), Daughter of Dr. Burgula Rama Krishna Rao, statesman and the first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh; Ms. Sumana taught Social Science at the Atomic Energy Central School, Hyderabad for 30 years. Retired in 1998, Ms. Sumana moved to her native village and since then has been tirelessly helping poor communities of her village lead better lives.

A VisionSpring Champion, Ms. Sumana helped VisionSpring’s Vision Entrepreneurs’ conduct eye camps in her village on many occasions. According to Ms. Sumana, an understanding of human nature and society is essential for organic development and the well being of society. A firm believer of ‘Work is Worship’ and ‘Service to Humanity is Service to God’, she believes in the concept of a pluralistic society with equal emphasis to human values.

Dr. Alok Agarwal, a leading Nephrologist based out of USA and Ms. Sumana’s former student says that his teacher has been his greatest inspiration and takes pride in being able to provide financial assistance to a Public School in Ms. Sumana’s native village.

Inspired by learning about VisionSpring’s work in Burgula village during his recent visit to her, Dr. Agarwal requested VisionSpring Vision Entrepreneurs to conduct an eye camp in August, 2010 to coincide with the opening ceremony of an auditorium donated by him for the for the local Self Help Group (SHG). Ms. Sumana made door-to-door visits and encouraged the villagers, especially women, to participate in the camp.

VisionSpring Vision Entrepreneurs’ screened 190 women and men and sold 106 eye glasses. During the camp, Dr. Agarwal actively participated and provided part financial support for purchase of eye glasses to the needy people.

Thanks to the support of Ms. Sumana, VisionSpring conducted 4 eye camps in Burgula village in last two years, screened 560 people, sold 230 eye glasses and helped 60 cataract patients get operated at the Lions Eye Hospital in Mahabubnagar city.

A person like Ms. Sumana in every village can do wonders by taking VisionSpring’s message to her neighbors and helping them achieve their goals. Apart from being encouraging and inspiring, the efforts of individuals like Ms. Sumana will help VisionSpring create a Factorial Effect* in impacting the lives of many.

To read more stories like this, visit our Stories from the Field page or Donate now to help VisionSpring to reach more villages like Ms. Sumana’s.

*In mathematics, the Factorial of a positive integer n, denoted by n! is the product of all positive integers less than or equal to n. For example, 5! = 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1

Norris and VisionSpring customers in India

VisionSpring sent Leah Norris, undergraduate student at Bard College, to India to gather stories and insights from our customers, Vision Entrepreneurs and staff. In the following post, Norris reflects on hospitality, dignity and her changing perspective in India.

Though I had traveled before, I had never been traveling with a purpose like I was when VisionSpring sent me off to Hyderabad, India.  I sat on tiny planes, crowded overnight trains, cars battered by the chaotic and threatening traffic, buses that broke down amongst empty fields, and fragile rickshaws to get from village to village, interviewing customers and employees of the company.  One man who was previously making a dangerously low income proudly showed me the house that he had built for his family since he began working as a Vision Entrepreneur. It was the single solid cement house in the area, surrounded by semi-temporary shacks that demonstrated the incredible contrast between his former life and the new one he had been given the opportunity to make. Another man, a weaver whose efficiency was doubled by the pair of glasses that VisonSpring made available to him, spent a full day’s wages buying my coworkers and me sodas in overflowing appreciation and hospitality. This kind of gratitude was extraordinarily hard for me to accept – I wanted nothing more than to run back and give him a thousand sodas in return- but the feeling of independence that he could now afford and express by welcoming us into his home was something he had fought for.

Throughout, I was inspired by the way that motivated individuals in challenging circumstances prioritize. The man with the cement house focused on making his family secure and comfortable, and feeling like he had accomplished something significant. The man with the sodas focused on his ability to interact with warm reciprocity, something that should be a human right, should we choose to exercise it. I met a father who still had not bought himself a cot to sleep on with his VisonSpring income for the sake of sending his son to the best possible school. What these people did when given the possibility for financial empowerment was a striking testament to this impressionable undergrad, teetering on the brink of cynicism. I saw a lot of terrible, frustrating things in India, but I also saw startlingly bright colors, a textured and poignant culture, and the reason that it is vital to give people a chance to create something for themselves. Even a simple pair of eyeglasses can be the spark that ignites the momentum.

VisionSpring India partner, Villgro Fellow 2010, Jeanne Chen argued in a recent blog post that a gender gap exists in the adoption of technologies at the base of they pyramid. She suggested that according to her observations, VisionSpring’s customers are skewed in favor of men because women lack disposable income and find glasses aesthetically unappealing.

VisionSpring is grateful to our important partner, Villgro for working on our behalf and ensuring women and men adopt our products equally. It is through such partnerships that we continue to improve our operating model and spread our impact. We welcome the questions like those raised by Jeanne Chen so that we can continue to innovate both our products and services to better serve consumers at the Base of the Pyramid.

In her post, Chen asserts that social enterprises need to be conscientious of the gender gap in innovation adoption and evaluate the impact of their interventions to overcome this gap – we agree. VisionSpring trains our Vision Entrepreneurs to conduct screenings and provide eye care solutions to all genders. According to our sales records in India last year, VisionSpring customers were roughly 52% male and 48% female – only slightly in favor of men. Despite this statistic, Chen raises two critical issues for VisionSpring to consider.

First, Chen argues that women are less likely to wear glasses because they consider eyeglasses aesthetically unappealing. To address this, she recommends including women in the sourcing of glasses. As a market-driven organization, VisionSpring recognizes the importance of understanding the needs and desires of all intended users of our products, including women. We have learned that by listening to the consumer we have a higher adoption and usage rate of the product. For this reason, VisionSpring utilizes our Visions Entrepreneurs to gather feedback regarding frame styles and selection and the sales of our products reinforce what works for our customers. VisionSpring local staff collect this information and use it to make sourcing decisions. For example, VisionSpring created protector glasses, which are sunglasses with clear, UV protected lens, specifically to address the cultural preferences of some women to avoid shading their eyes. Though we are not perfect, like other consumer businesses, VisionSpring does its best to accommodate the widely varied tastes of our customers.

Second, Chen notes that women are less likely to have disposable income and economic means to purchase glasses. As she recommends, our Vision Entrepreneurs emphasize to customers the importance of preserving vision for economic productivity. Part of the challenge of selling this product is demonstrating to customers that purchasing reading glasses is an important investment for economic wellbeing of the family unit. One of our primary goals is to increase awareness about vision loss in the developing world and a large part of our outreach is done through vision campaigns in which our Vision Entrepreneurs not only screen vision loss, but also educate the general population about how restoring their vision can restore their productivity.

One customer in rural India, Shadna had been supporting her family for years after her husband died. As her vision deteriorated, she was unable to continue her work as a seamstress and had to labor in the fields earning too little to support her family. She tells VisionSpring, “I heard that a Vision Entrepreneur would be in my town, and even though I did not have money to spare, I went because the vision screening was free. I saw that the glasses they had were good quality, and I decided that they were worth the cost. I am back to my sewing now and making the same money as before. I am happy that I once again have a way to support my children.”

Stories like Shadna’s reinforce the power of awareness of our services and of vision care to women and men in the community. We thank Jeanne Chen and Villgro for holding us accountable to ensuring women are able to adopt the important technologies they need. We look forward to strengthening our collaboration on behalf of all consumers at the Base of the Pyramid.

VisionSpring is lucky to have four MBA students from the Ross School of Business MAP program assessing the pilot of our new business model in El Salvador. The MBAs arrived in Santa Ana, El Salvador last week. During their time with us, VisionSpring will post the impressions of our four students on Business in a Bag. In the first post, Stephanie Osborn reports on the patience Vision Entrepreneurs exhibit cultivating customers in regions where eye care has never before been accessible.

We have had the opportunity to observe several campaigns, the community gatherings where the Vision Entrepreneurs perform eye exams and sell reading glasses. Whether there are eight people from the community present or fifty, I have been struck by the level of individual attention that the VEs give each customer. People come from all over the area surrounding Santa Ana, seeking not only an eye exam but some sort of explanation about what exactly is happening in their eyes. They want to know why their vision is cansada, or tired, and why they need this specific type of glasses. People come looking for answers.

The VEs never seem to lose their patience or rush a customer. They make sure that each person gets his or her questions answered. During one campaign, a VE named Noel explained to an elderly woman why she needed to take better care of her eyes so that she could continue to live a full life and not go blind. The woman began to cry. Noel immediately began to comfort her, sitting down on the bench beside her. He kept speaking with us until she calmed down and understood that he was trying to help her. I was impressed with how he listened to the elderly woman and answered her questions; this sort of attention and care is very different from the clinical and fast-paced medical experience in the United States.

This is not to say, however, that the eye exams performed at the campaigns are any less thorough than those in the U.S. People leave the VisionSpring campaigns with glasses or a referral to an optometrist in the Santa Ana office. The customers seem very happy with their new frames and renewed vision. I continually notice that the VEs do not only give out glasses, but answers as well; the personal attention given to each customer is incredibly important because it makes the VEs part of the communities that they serve. There are perhaps more answers to be found in this process than simply those that the VEs offer their patients.

-Stephanie Osborn

At the Talberg Forum last month, Jordan Kassalow gave a presentation on “What Works in Microfranchise” based on VisionSpring’s experience selling reading glasses to create jobs. The audience? A group of entrepreneurs organizing to sell low-cost solar-powered lights to the developing world (the event was put together by D.light Design). This kind of sharing is inspiring: the lessons of microfranchise can be applied among a wide range of ventures, and we’re seeing that practitioners across the board are eager to learn.

As it happens, John Keane of SolarAid recently visited VisionSpring India to see our Vision Entrepreneurs in action. Take a minute to read what parts of the VisionSpring approach he plans to carry forward.

I spent today in the district of Mahbubnagar visiting VisionSpring’s Vision Entrepreneurs as they tested the eyes of local villagers to see if they suffer from presbyopia (blurry close up vision that becomes more and more common after the age of 35), and offered glasses for sale to those who needed them. During my visit I met up with VisionSpring’s District Coordinator Sudhir Kumar and Vision Spring Entrepreneurs Mr. and Mrs. Neeli who explained that since joining vision spring, they had virtually tripled their previous income, selling over 150 glasses. Inspiring stuff!

Even from my short visit, it was clear that the people living in the village were not used to having a health service available ‘on their doorstep.’ I also saw many parallels between the work of Vision Spring and SolarAid. Like Vision Spring, SolarAid is working with entrepreneurs in rural areas. The difference, of course, is the product. SolarAid trains entrepreneurs to set up microsolar businesses which offer people viable, solar powered energy alternatives to kerosene, candles and disposable batteries.

While there are many challenges when trying to reach people living in often remote rural areas, I was impressed by the professional approach VisionSpring takes. All of its entrepreneurs are provided with the tools and resources they need, such as branded T shirts, receipt books and identity cards, in order to look credible, professional and give their customers the confidence that the warranty they offer on the glasses they sell will be honored. From our own work at SolarAid we have also seen the importance of providing entrepreneurs with these tools to give them a strong platform for making their business a success. After all, starting a new business in any context is never easy. But I feel that the microfranchise approach Vision Spring have adopted really is a strong one and I’ll be taking what I’ve learned back to SolarAid’s programmes in Africa.

I left Mahbubnagar wishing the entrepreneurs the very best of luck for the future and with the knowledge that VisionSpring will give them continued support and training to help them on their way. Of course I couldn’t leave without buying a pair of sunglasses – which I can honestly say look far better quality than the pair I bought in a market in Delhi just weeks before which have already broken! In fact, I’m wearing them right now!

Net Impact’s Josh Cleveland interviews Vice President of Sales and Operations Peter Eliassen on working in base of the pyramid markets.

Over the years, VisionSpring has worked to refine the model that enables it to provide a much-needed healthcare product while empowering entrepreneurs to make significant returns. In this six-minute podcast, Peter sheds light on mechanisms that make this possible. From sourcing structure to sales format, learn about how VisionSpring has become “the holy grail of social enterprise” and its plans for moving forward.

Listen to the podcast here.

BRAC recently highlighted the VisionSpring partnership on their blog. Check it out here.

Peter Eliassen reflects on his experiences visiting glasses manufacturers in the high-growth city of Wenzhou, China, including what goes on behind the scenes of the factory floor.

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit Wenzhou, China with the goal of finding a glasses supplier that can help us deliver on our strong growth plan over the next few years. Wenzhou is located in southern Zhejiang province, about an hour’s plane flight south of Shanghai on the east coast of China. Just 20 years ago, it was a modest city with only a few restaurants and minimal infrastructure. Recently, Wenzhou has greatly benefited from globalization, becoming one of the richest cities per capita (3^rd highest disposable income) in China by supplying the world with affordable eyeglasses, cigarette lighters, and Italian shoes (among other exports). Wenzhou now produces 80% of the world’s affordable glasses and its citizens are known throughout China as some of the country’s best entrepreneurs.

While visiting the factories of our current and potential suppliers, I at first felt saddened by the large numbers of young workers I witnessed slaving away at menial labor. I saw countless young men and women ages 18-24 sitting in the same chair and performing the same task for up to 11 hours per day, 6 days a week. The employees were so concentrated on their labor that only a few of them took the time to glance up at us; most continued working on pair after pair. I couldn’t help but think that they should be in university right now, building a better future for themselves.

Yet as with most issues, there are two sides to the story of young factory labor. In each of the factories we visited, I asked about salaries and employee benefits for the workers. I learned that employees are paid by the pair or task completed, so their intense focus began to make sense. Each of the factories provided a similar wage range — between 1300-3000 RMB ($191-$441 USD) for the month — depending on their experience and the type of job. Most of the factories provided free food and lodging to workers, housing them in dormitories connected to the factory, which enabled the workers to save most of their monthly salaries.

A good majority of the workers come from poorer western China to work for 1-2 years, save up their earnings, and return home to their villages with money in their pockets to pay for a wedding or aid their families. One supplier told us that wage inflation has been at least 30% over the past 3 years, and the cost of health insurance has quickly risen for employers (some pay as much as 370 RMB, or $50 per worker per month). While these factors may not bode well for maintaining prices at a level that our Base-of-the-Pyramid consumers can afford, they are certainly positive changes for the young Chinese workers.

At the end of the trip, none of our team members ever felt the “sweatshop” experience, and after hearing both sides of the story, I feel proud that the global demand we are generating for affordable glasses is enabling these factory workers to earn and save money. This, to me, is an almost pure definition of the term “market maker,” and a key reason why social entrepreneurship holds so much promise for the BOP.

VisionSpring received this email from a supporter in India, who shares his perspective on why the VisionSpring model is so important for the rural poor.

I live in Chennai, India. I would like to congratulate you for your noble efforts. I can afford medical care, and know the importance of using reading glasses.

Most eye doctors collude with shops that sell glasses and make people pay atleast Rs. 1000 each year for their glasses. Glasses that should normally cost Rs. 100 to 200 cost 10 times that price. In cities, most eye doctors prescribe “progressive lenses” which cost anywhere between Rs. 5000 and Rs. 20000. City folks who work in Information Technology can afford these.

I know many poor people in my native rural village who simply cannot afford to buy reading glasses paying Rs. 1000 or 2000 every year, and therefore choose not to read after 40. The quality of their lives come down drastically and people go into a semi-retirement at about 45 years. Your efforts in addressing this segment of population is laudable.

I was told that VisionSpring used to sell reading glasses through Apollo Pharmacies in Andhra Pradesh (India), but not any more.*

The model adopted by you to sell glasses through medical shops (pharmacies) is wonderful, and I hope you’ll revive that model.

As a person coming from a rural village, I know that more than 50% of the people do not have money to even pay a doctor and therefore rely on medical shops to treat them. Poor people are therefore likely to buy their reading glasses if sold through medical shops.

I hope you’ll revive selling your reading glasses through Apollo pharmacies or other agencies again.

* Note: As Venkatarathnam mentions, there is a market failure for low-cost glasses even in urban centers in India, and in other developing countries where VisionSpring works. VisionSpring has begun to address this issue in India by making glasses available through Apollo Pharmacies on a trial basis. This effort has not ended, as he had heard, but at the moment remains a small trial program. VisionSpring plans to develop and expand this delivery model in 2009.

Microfranchising at the Base of the Pyramid: David Lehr’s paper provides an in-depth analysis of microfranchising as a development tool. The paper highlights three leading microfranchising organizations that partner with Acumen Fund: Drishtee, VisionSpring (formerly Scojo Foundation) and Sustainable Healthcare Foundation. It’s one of a series of written articles that Acumen Fund has produced about the ways market-based approaches are changing the way we think about poverty alleviation.

Read the paper here: http://www.acumenfund.org/uploads/assets/documents/Microfranchising_Working%20Paper_XoYB6sZ5.pdf

This post originally appeared on the Acumen Fund Blog http://blog.acumenfund.org/2008/11/10/new-on-acumenfundorg-ambulances-clinics-and-microfranchises/