Success in Brazil

Partnership at the base of the pyramid across faith communities, universities, and relief and development organizations are one of the most important collaborations to getting eye healthcare to the 2.5 billion people who have no access to optometry services. Greg Wiens, the Program Director for Global Vision 2020, will be attending the International Mennonite Brethren Conference (ICOMB) Malawi June 4-10. 

This comes on the heels of Greg and Marco Soares’s successful trip to Brazil in April, where Global Vision 2020 was successfully registered as a non-profit in Brazil in partnership with the Brazil Mennonite Brethren Churches. Marco (age 19) will be attending HULT School of Business at the London Campus starting in September on a full scholarship. Marco will be applying for the HULT Prize (https://www.hultprize.org) social entrepreneurship endeavor in the fall of 2024.  

Marco recently won the Assiniboia Chamber of Commerce Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Canada and has big dreams of helping not only his home country of Brazil but also the Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa (Angola and Mozambique) in getting affordable glasses to the poorest of the poor.  

During this trip Greg trained local teachers and health care providers and Marco met with government officials. The end result was a core team of workers trained to distribute glasses and a fully licensed program that is now in the beginning stages of partnering with local universities, hospitals, and optometrists. Giving credit where credit is due, it was because of Marco’s hard work that this has all come together. The work there has just begun, but we now have a firm foundation to build on in the Portuguese-speaking world.