Photo Courtesy of Skygen
Based in Menomonee Falls, Wis., Skygen USA is a large company that develops and utilizes digital solutions for health care administration. Taking advantage of their expertise, Skygen expanded into the Skygen International Foundation, a nonprofit aiming to bring health care to impoverished parts of the world, in early 2017. Off the Cuff talked to the foundation’s executive director, Lisa Sweeney, about their key project: Offering free eye exams and glasses to the people of Tanzania in Africa.
What exactly do you do for the Tanzanian population?
We do vision testing, and we test everyone’s vision twice. We begin with an acuity test—you cover one eye and you look at the sign across the room—and then the Kaleidos, which is an auto-refraction machine that measures your eye and lets the optometrist know what kind of correction you need. After the tests, those that need glasses go see the optometrist to finalize the prescription.
We tested all the primary and secondary school children in the Meru region, along with their teachers, and we also did open clinics for the general population. In the past couple weeks, we’ve moved to the neighboring Arusha region, and we started serving the schools and general population there. Every person who comes gets tested, and if they need glasses, we build the glasses for them immediately. We work with glasses provider Essilor, who have ready-to-clip glasses; we pop in the lenses with the proper prescription in the frame, and people can walk away with their glasses that day for free.
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How many people have you helped so far?
As of Friday, Nov. 8, we tested 100,338 people, and we’ve given away 22,512 pairs of glasses.
Why Tanzania?
Skygen International Foundation was founded based on the dream of our chairman, Craig Kasten, to do more good in the world. On a family trip to Tanzania, he saw the opportunity to take the work that we do at Skygen and apply it to a need that he saw in that country, where he saw children in schools standing right next to the board because they couldn’t read the writing on the chalkboard.
It is interesting to see that, in that part of the world, there are actually fewer children who need glasses because they don’t have the screen time that people in the U.S. have; they’re not looking at their iPads and TV screens and video games. But the ones who need glasses really do need them.
When I was there in August, there was a 9-year-old girl with a correction of 1,200—what you and I can see 1,200 feet away, she can only see 20 feet away. In Tanzania, there is only one textbook per classroom, so the teacher writes the lecture on the board, and students copy it. They have a test, and if they don’t pass it, they don’t get to move on to the next grade. So, that little girl wouldn’t have been able to stay in school, because she couldn’t see the chalkboard and couldn’t copy the lesson; it didn’t matter how smart she was. We were able to change that, which is great.
How do local populations react to what you offer?
These people are so appreciative of what we do, and it’s so humbling when we go there and see hundreds of people show up when we have general clinics. They are shocked that people would do this for them. They can’t believe that someone would be generous enough to just give out free glasses to 22,000 people. They’re just so happy, and it’s an amazing experience. I am very fortunate to be able to do this.
