A first for World Sight Day 2015, Essilor Group brand ambassadors share a “call for action” video with millions of fans across the world. Celebrities “Raise the flag for better vision” along with Essilor Group employees, mobilized across the world to provide screenings and share awareness campaigns.

Poor vision is among the most widespread and underestimated of all disabilities in the world. Detecting vision impairment as early as possible is a vital step toward combating poor vision, so that everyone – child, grown up or elderly – can learn better, work better, live better everyday.

Essilor, whose mission is to improve lives by improving sight, has leveraged its local brand ambassadors across the world to « Raise the flag for better vision »: Kat Graham, well known for her role in Vampire Diaries in the US, Piolo Pascual, a famous actor in the Philippines with 2.6 million “followers”, Nieves Alvares, a Spanish top model, or Sonakshi Sinha, a movie star in India with 19 million fans have all shared an awareness raising video with their fans on social networks over the past 7 days. (Click on the names to discover their message about the importance of vision).

Visual health: a global challenge
Poor vision affects billions of people in the world: 4.5 billion people need vision correction and 2.5 billion of them do not benefit from any solution to correct their eyesight. Yet simple, tried and tested solutions today exist to correct vision impairment issues.

A significant number of people, whether in developing or in mature countries, do not even know they need vision correction or do not check their eyes regularly.

As stated by the Vision Impact Institute1, the cost of uncorrected refractive errors accounts to 272 $Bn per year on a global scale, in terms of productivity loss. Not only is good vision key to a better life, the economic and social impact of poor vision are huge.

Essilor teams in the world committed to raise the flag
As part of this day of action, the Essilor Group has organized events in some forty countries across the world to raise public awareness on the importance of good vision for all. Thanks to the involvement of internal teams along with eye care professionals, Essilor and its partners will offer sight tests in the streets, shopping malls, train stations, schools and other public places around the world, from India and the United States to Germany, Australia and Thailand.

Last year, at World Sight Day 2014, more than 12 000 eye tests were performed and a social media campaign reached nearly 300 000 people worldwide.

“See Change”: follow Essilor’s commitment to healthy vision for all, all year round
Essilor’s “See Change” digital platform was launched earlier this year to share the many initiatives being carried out by Essilor and its partners across the world to promote healthy vision for all. Click here to watch the latest video that sums up why Essilor has created the See Change platform and follow all the Group’s social impact initiatives on Twitter @SeeChange4all.