Joseph Levious: Speechless with Joy

In rural Malawi, two teams of GoodVision (Malawi) travel from village to village to perform eye tests on site as part of eye camps. The way to the city is often long and expensive, the glasses there are usually unaffordable for the people from the countryside. For many people our eye camps are therefore the only way to get glasses.

At the eye camp at the Ndaula Health Center, about 50 kilometers from the capital Lilongwe, we noticed Joseph, who was waiting for his eye test with very strange glasses. The eye test showed an unusually strong myopia of -9.00 diopters. Without glasses, one is considered blind in this refractive error. 

Joseph’s glasses were scratched, bent, broken several times and provisionally glued together with clay; the lenses cloudy like frosted glass. Nevertheless, he guarded his glasses like a treasure, because he still saw a little more with them than without them. 

Broken and glued with clay: The 30-Year-old glasses of Joseph | © SzeYie Chan

Joseph said that he had been given the glasses as a gift in a hospital 30 years ago. Without glasses, he could not move, let alone pursue his work as a farmer. Over the years, he lived with the constant fear that his glasses might one day break completely. Then he came to our eye camp. Joseph was speechless as he looked through his new OneDollarGlasses. Our whole team was touched and happy with him. 

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