Eye Mitra

The Need

In rural India, poor vision often goes uncorrected — not because treatment doesn’t exist, but because it remains out of reach. For communities far from urban eye care centers, something as simple as a pair of spectacles can mean the difference between a child who reads and one who cannot, or a farmer who works safely and one who cannot. Compounding this, rural youth face limited pathways to stable, meaningful employment — leaving two urgent challenges unaddressed where one solution could serve both.

The Intervention

Eye Mitra integrates community awareness, technical skills training, and micro-enterprise development. It recruits and trains 250 young participants across three dedicated training centers in Karnataka — building practical skills in vision screening and spectacle dispensing over three months, certifies graduates to launch their own micro-enterprises bringing affordable eye care directly to their communities, and expands access through community awareness campaigns that connect underserved populations to vision care services — turning rural youth into entrepreneurs and restoring sight to those who need it most.