Billionaire MacKenzie Scott donates $15m to help provide glasses to farmers in developing countries

theguardian.com:

MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire philanthropist and former wife of the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has donated $15m (£13.5m) to a social enterprise that helps provide glasses to farmers in developing countries.

Scott’s donation to VisionSpring is believed to be the largest single private donation towards helping solve the problem of uncorrected blurry vision which leaves hundreds of millions of people in poverty.

The donation – announced on World Sight Day – kickstarts an initiative to provide glasses to hundreds of thousands of low-income tea, coffee, cocoa and artisan workers in India, Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda.

VisionSpring says its $70m Livelihoods in Focus campaign could create more than $1bn of new income among tea, coffee, cocoa and artisan workers by 2030 by allowing them to see clearer and earn more.

“The gift from Ms Scott is an incredible acknowledgment of the power of a simple pair of eyeglasses to unlock earning, learning, safety and wellbeing for people vulnerable to poverty,” VisionSpring’s chief executiveElla Gudwin said.

“And, with this powerful endorsement of our work, we are embarking on a multi-year journey to put Livelihoods in Focus, addressing the massive vision care gap among agricultural and artisan workers in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. We need many more philanthropic investors, along with governments, companies and NGOs to join in bringing the wonder of clear vision to everyone.”

The non-profit organisation said it found that 65-85% of workers who acquired eyeglasses through its vision access programmes had never had their sight tested before and became first-time wearers of glasses.

“For workers the benefits of this-700 year-old technology are immediate,” VisionSpring said. “They gain