​When Nancy Uslan founded the Books & Beyond Project at her alma mater, Indiana University, she had a big idea in mind: to develop globally minded students who are prepared for life in the 21st century by increasing critical literacy skills, addressing the Rwandan "book famine,” and developing models for cross-cultural teaching and learning. It wasn’t until 2014 on one of her many trips to Rwanda that Nancy had a “lightbulb moment.”  She explains, “All of sudden, it hit me! What if the children can’t see the words on the pages of the books we’re delivering?” Nancy realized she had never seen one student wearing a pair of glasses. As a retired nurse, the daughter of an ophthalmologist and sister of one, as well, she was shocked it took so long for her to notice this issue. Nancy believes it is possible to significantly impact Rwanda’s economic landscape if children can have yearly preventative health vision services from licensed vision professionals. Children who can see better will reach their fullest potential and could enter Rwanda’s private sector as a result. Her dream is to see optometry added to the University of Rwanda Medical School’s curriculum and graduate trained professionals who can write prescriptions and/or dispense glasses to those in need and refer patients having eye medical issues to local ophthalmologists.

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That’s when she reached out to the Indiana University School of Optometry and a Utah based non-profit for help. Together, a concept for vision focused mission trips was developed. The goal: take a group of students and doctors to Rwanda to provide much-needed eye care for children. To date, NEU Global, the Indiana University School of Optometry (under the supervision of pediatric clinical optometrist Dr. Don Lyon), and pediatric optician Joseph Carbon’s Eye Care 4 Kids foundation have successfully taken two trips to Rwanda, providing comprehensive eye exams to over 1,000 students. New prescription glasses were distributed to those in need and referrals to ophthalmologists were given to students with eye medical issues.

 

In addition to the partnership work we are doing with Rwandan children, we have decided to examine adults. There wasn’t a day that passed while doing our pediatric examinations that adults didn’t line up to see if we could make exceptions and examine them as well. It became increasingly difficult to say no since it was clear many adults had eye issues. We are confident this decision will have an enormous impact in ways we can’t even begin to imagine.