Published by BRAC at Jul 27 2010 “Wait, let me get my glasses first”. How many times have we heard this expression from our colleagues, parents and friends or pronounced it ourselves? And experienced a feeling of relief as the blur of black waves turns into a legible text! Reading glasses are ubiquitous in our society: we use them when we are working, reading, watching news, etc. – so that we consider them as a basic necessity and take them as granted.Yet, in some parts of the developing world, a pair of reading glasses can be a hard-to-access luxury, available in expensive optic shops in urban areas. This means that millions of men and women lose a great part of their economic productivity, not to mention emotional well-being, as the acuteness of their vision decreases with age. A lot of young people with a weak vision have to forego opportunities to be engaged in certain professions such as jewelry or weaving, or cannot advance in education because of limited reading.
