Our Story

How We Got Started

The Rosani Lens Project was started in 2019 by Dr. Benjamin Thomas as a means to expand glasses access around the world, but the idea for the project stretches back to 2013 and a residency research project at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, Florida. Presented with the problem of how to bring good glasses to more people, with limited human resources but plenty of human goodwill, we imagined a solution that inspired the initial research project and, now, the Rosani Lens Project. With medical missions experience on five continents, including as a fellow with the Himalayan Cataract Project, this lens project is the culmination of a career-long desire to help others through the restoration of sight.

Our Pilot Project

The pilot initiative for the Rosani Lens Project happened in a town near San Jose, Costa Rica, in the spring of 2019. Working in partnership with a medical missions group from South Carolina, a local Costa Rican church, a neighborhood school, and a local ophthalmologist, the “beta kit” was utilized during five days of free clinics.
The project was a resounding success! Over the five days of vision testing, 194 patients were successfully screened and a total of 69 pairs of free custom glasses were distributed. More importantly, the vision results were dramatic: the average patient had a visual acuity of 20/80 - 20/100 (for a more detailed explanation of visual acuity, click here) when they came in, but walked out with a new pair of glasses and vision of 20/30! Half of the patients attained a visual acuity of 20/20 or 20/25, and four patients even went from “blind” to not visually impaired. This represented a huge positive change in terms of vision, safety, day-to-day functioning, and quality of life.

“Everything is improved…I now have the vision to do absolutely everything”
-Patient Response

In post-testing surveys, 100 percent of the patients stated that the glasses helped them see better, and gave us quotes like the ones above. Additionally, 44 patients were referred to the local ophthalmologist based on screening criteria, allowing them to get more comprehensive eye testing.
And, notably, all of this good work was done — not by ophthalmologists — but by a dental student and a dental hygienist working together. After two hours of training. The technique formulated by the Rosani Lens Project opens up this kind of work to so many, recruiting more and more people into the work of bringing glasses to the world!

“The new glasses will help in every way…I won’t take them off”
-Patient Response

Great visual acuity results, local partnerships, support for local eye professionals through screening and referral—these were the heart of our pilot project and the foundation for establishing the Rosani Lens Project.

Our Core Principles

The work of the Rosani Lens Project is to provide a unified, aligned solution to three core problems:

Millions of people are living visually impaired because they cannot get an appropriate set of glasses due to significant barriers to access and availability;
One of the main barriers, especially in low- to middle-income countries (LMICs), is that there are simply not enough trained eye specialists to provide the necessary testing and make the glasses; and, finally
Thousands of groups and individuals pursue charitable endeavors annually—including for medical missions—but often lack the training and resources to make the lasting change to which they aspire.

How do we get more high-quality, life-changing glasses to more people? Where do we find the human resources to reach the most remote communities, when such a shortage exists? How can we help good-hearted people maximize their charitable efforts abroad?
These are the questions that drove the formulation of the Rosani Lens Project. With our curated technique for refractive testing and custom glasses production, we can recruit and “deputize” thousands of people without formal ophthalmic training to go out into communities where access to glasses has been absent and distribute sight-improving lenses at a fractional cost—improving vision, maximizing long-term impact, and providing care and dignity in the process.
This is the heart of the Rosani Lens Project. We would love for you to be a part.

Rosani Lens Project
A 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
[email protected]