November 10, 2011

Saying Hello

By dwilliams
Namaste! Even with the language barrier this simple phrase used as a greeting is an easy way for us to communicate with our clinic patients. Luckily, we have an amazing assortment of local students to help us translate everything else. Today at clinic, we started at about 10:30am local time and had a non-stop flow of patients until 5:00pm. It was an extremely busy day, but taking the time to greet the patients in words that they are familiar with helped us to make connection with them and provide them with a personal experience., leaving us with names and faces we will never forget.

We would like to take the time this posting to introduce our clinic leaders. They are the ones who have organized this clinic from the beginning, and keep it flowing every day. We couldn't do it without them!

David Berumen is a project manager for OneSight. He had been leading clinics for ten years, and has been on so many clinics he doesn't even know the exact number. His favorite part of clinic is working with a constant flow of different people-from the clinic team members to the patients-and seeing all of the lives that are impacted.  During times of crisis and confusion, David keeps it all together so that we can help as many people as possible.  

Kelly Danislavs is a clinic coordinator for OneSight and a Regional General Manager for LensCrafters in the Cincinnati market. She has been with Luxottica for 17 years and this is her fourteenth international mission. Her most memorable clinic experience was the children of Ghana, one of the poorest areas that OneSight travels to. Even though they had such a true need, not knowing where their next meal was coming from or if they would have clean water that day, they still had a passion for life and a happiness that was unmatchable.

Mona Darbonne is an inventory manager for OneSight and a General Manager for LensCrafters in Houston, Texas. This is Mona's seventh international clinic, and she is a tested and proven problem solver. In Laos, all of the clinic computers were seized by customs and the inventory didn't arrive until six days after the start of clinic. When the inventory finally arrived, Mona's team had to go back and hand pick all of the previous clinic patient's glasses and deliver them to them. It required a huge amount of teamwork and some fast-learned resource management, but the team was able to get all 10,000 patients their glasses.

Dr. Randy Edwards is the lead doctor for our clinic and a Managing Doctor of Optometry in Chico, California. He has been with Luxottica for six years, and this is his sixth mission. Dr. Edwards is responsible for organizing the doctor services on the clinic, and ensuring that each patient receives the best care possible. On his first mission in Honduras, he met a 15-year-old girl who was a -15.00 in each eye. She had never seen her mother and father's faces clearly until receiving her first pair of glasses from OneSight.

Mark Lyons is our photography director for our mission. This mission is Mark's 35th international mission. He is the one who truly gets to capture the life changes that happen at a OneSight clinic through photos It is because of Mark that OneSight has beautiful images to tell our stories and share our mission with the world. All OneSight photos on the website were taken by Mark. Check out his website at www.lyonsphotopgraphy.com.

Jason Singh, the new Director of OneSight, joined us yesterday for the remainder of the week. He has been with Luxottica since September. Prior to that, he was a practicing optometrist in the Cincinnati area until moving to South Africa for two years where he worked with the Bophelong Community Center in Mamelodi (a post-Apartheid township) developing an eye and dental care clinic for the surrounding communities. He also helped coordinate a OneSight mission there in 2010. Our team is incredibly excited to work with him over the next couple of days.

Back to today-we had an extremely successful clinic and we were able to exceed our goal 1200, helping 1474 people total.  We are now on our way to clinic day #3 and this blog is being composed on a VERY bumpy bus ride-apologies for any typos!  Talk to you all soon!

8 Comments

  1. Kate Goodwin says:

    Namaste Emily and all those helping at this wonderful clinic!  Thanks for making us all feel a part by keeping us updated and posting pictures that make it real!

    Keep up the great work!

    Posted on Fri Nov 11, 2011 1:31 am EST

  2. Brandy Copsey says:

    Lucky you Tani in getting to work with David and Mark again !! I am enjoying reading the blog and all the incredible memories you all are making !! KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK ALL !!

    Posted on Fri Nov 11, 2011 11:15 am EST

  3. Oakley Account Services says:

    Shout out to Paul Dinh!  Oakley misses you and is proud of the awesome work you are doing!  Safe travels and we can’t wait to hear about all of your great stories. :)  Heather, Sean, Hugo, Juan & Team

    Posted on Fri Nov 11, 2011 5:38 pm EST

  4. Nina, Nazim, Safia, Ryan and Tristan says:

    Nameste Ali and Team

    Happy is the man whose deeds are greater than his learning ...
    Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are! Ali we are very proud of you and your team! Excellent Work!
    Love from your family in Richmond Hill

    Posted on Mon Nov 14, 2011 1:03 pm EST

  5. izzat datoo says:

    Ali, i am very very proud of you, humble as you look, out there to perform miracles to bring about major changes in peoples lives. this is absolutely phenomenal. I pray for your success in all your ventures.

    Posted on Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:44 pm EST

  6. The Sekela Family says:

    Dr. Jason - sounds like things are going great.  Thinking and praying for you in Loveland.  See you soon!

    Posted on Wed Nov 16, 2011 7:16 pm EST

  7. Bruce E. Neumann, Sr. Tax Manager says:

    Good luck to the whole team.  India is very special to me.  I was part of the original 2008 Global Clinic to Amritsar, India.  The people were fantastic.  Their belief in family, religion and culture was something special.  Keep up the great work.  You are making a difference.  Take care.

    Posted on Thu Nov 17, 2011 4:23 pm EST

  8. Jan Bodine, ALM 560 says:

    Dr. Edwards is such a great person and a great Dr. The team is very lucky to have him there helping. I can’t wait to hear more great stories. I’ll be in OH in just a few weeks and will be posting some great stories too. Keep up all the great work!
    Store 560 Redding, CA

    Posted on Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:35 pm EST

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