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In this week's issue, VisionSpring Foundation receives a Business Community award, Team Uganda onboards new CHWs, and we join the Global SPECS Network!

Got something to add? Let us know!

Goal 1: Growth & Impact

VisionSpring Foundation wins Business Community Award

Last week, the All India Business and Community Foundation distinguished the VisionSpring Foundation with the Business Community Award 2024.

This honor, awarded during the National Conclave on Impactful Sustainable Business Practices in New Delhi, recognizes our contributions to business and community development across India.

Many thanks to Kumari Manisha (Programs Lead, Vision Access Programs) and Vasundhra Joshi (Deputy Lead, Resource Mobilization) for representing us at the event!

Team Zambia makes impact at CSR Conference

We recently attended the 2024 CSR, Sustainability & ESG Conference, hosted by CSR Network Zambia in the city of Livingstone.

Zambia team members Gift Musenga (Project Implementation Lead, VAP), Chanda Chilese (Project Coordinator RGIL), and Isaac Muyuya (Business Development Manager) successfully raised awareness of our programs amongst the numerous private entities and NGOs in attendance.

Also present at the event was Lee Aguko (Resource Mobilization Lead, Africa), visiting from Kenya. He supported the Zambia team by leading an impactful presentation on VisionSpring's work, featuring many of our inspiring customer stories.

We left with a rich pipeline of opportunities to follow up on, as well as partnership offers from Mabiza Resources Limited and Zambia Airports Corporation Limited.

Training CHWs with PACE in Uganda

Last week, we inducted a new team of Community Health Workers (CHWs) to expand our Reading Glasses for Improved Livelihoods (RGIL) program in Uganda.

Through our partnership with PACE (Programme for Accessible health, Communication and Education), we trained a group of retired midwives to screen for presbyopia and dispense reading glasses. They will soon begin to enhance RGIL's impact in hard-to-reach communities across the country.

Goal 2: Catalyze & Influence

VisionSpring Joins Global SPECS Network

VisionSpring is now a member of the Global SPECS Network!

Hosted by the World Health Organization, this network unites stakeholders across all sectors to support the WHO SPECS 2030 Initiative through coordinated advocacy and action.

The SPECS Network will concentrate its efforts in achieving a 40% increase in refractive error coverage by 2030 — the global target endorsed at the 74th World Health Assembly in 2021.

Goal 4: Performance Capacity

Ghana is Now Technically Distinct

Thanks to the IT team, Ghana is now its own entity within our resource planning platform, SAP (also known as BOOST).

We legally registered VisionSpring in Ghana last year, but in SAP, the country's Finance and Supply Chain teams continued operating as a "unit" of the Global Support team.

Now, after a recent database configuration, all of Team Ghana's financial transactions (including purchase orders, expenses, and invoices) are separate from other VisionSpring entities. This not only streamlines our operations, but also reduces the risk of misattribution.

Team & Culture

IAPB Young Systems Leader Awards

Do you know a young leader at VisionSpring? Nominate them for the IAPB's Young Systems Leader Awards!

This initiative seeks to "raise the profile of early-career eye health professionals who demonstrate an aptitude and motivation to drive a systems mindset through their work."

Winners will gain valuable professional development opportunities, including:

• Speaking or co-facilitating roles at 2030 INSIGHT LIVE 2024
• Networking meetings with senior professionals and the IAPB President
• Complimentary access to pre-event meetings and online workshops
• An IAPB Young Systems Leader 2024 certificate

Note that only candidates under the age of 35 are eligible, and the deadline to submit nominations is March 4th!

To find out more, click the link below:

Congratulations

Four VisionSpring team members have successfully completed courses in Project Management Professional training!

After starting the course in September of last year, Mohammad Shahnawaz (Deputy manager, Salesforce), Rupali Rai (Senior Manager, Marketing), Praveen Kumar (Assistant Manager, IT), and Anupam Sengupta (Program Manager, RGIL) received their certificates this week.

VisionSpring in Pictures

We recently visited Professor Enayet Hussain, Country Chair of the IAPB in Bangladesh.

After a fruitful meeting, we gave him one of our end-of-year gifts, which he loved!

VisionSpring's Africa Summit has officially kicked off!

Colleagues from different teams and geographies are gathered in Lagos, Nigeria for the week-long conference.

LinkedIn Algorithm Insights 2024 Report

Communication and storytelling are fundamental in the nonprofit and social enterprise space. If you want to learn how to up your game on LinkedIn, be sure to read the Algorithm Insights 2024 Report by Just Connecting.

This reader friendly guide can help you optimize your content, maximize your audience reach, and stay ahead of ebbs and flows in the LinkedIn algorithm.

Here are a few key takeaways:

• Keep your standard text & image posts between 900 to 1,200 characters
• The ideal number of slides in a carousel post is 12
• Polls with 3 well-crafted options perform the best
• The more you engage with other people's content, the more other people engage with yours!

Contributors

Thank you for contributing to this week's content: Vasundhra, Isaac, Julius, James, Ella, Shilpi, Ashna, and Ella.

Have an accomplishment, announcement, or story to share? Send details and photos to alex.nath@visionspring.org to be featured in InFocus! For inspiration and examples, click here.

Please send your updates and news for InFocus to alex.nath@visionspring.org

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