Eye Health Hero: Rahul Tiwari

Rahul Tiwari is an eye-health evangelist, who at the young age of 32, has already helped more than 1-million people get clear-vision through eyeglasses. Rahul holds MBA from the Asian Business School (Noida, India), Post-Graduate Diploma in Film-and-Media from the Asian Academy of Film and Television (Noida, India), and Certification in International-Business from the Oxford College (United Kingdom) and now has spent several-years in the field of eyecare, especially working on creating access-and-awareness for people at the bottom of the socio-economic-pyramid in the remotest-interiors of India and Nepal.

Rahul has worked closely with eye hospitals, NGOs, and Government on creating policies and access to ensure people get the gift of clear-vision through eyeglasses and can earn and learn better and lead safer lives. Rahul has spent close to 7-years at VisionSpring and has helped more than 1-million people get eyeglasses, thus creating more than $162 million in economic-impact. Rahul also worked tirelessly during the COVID pandemic (despite a personal tragedy) and has touched more than 500,000 people with COVID response-and-relief, PPE, and vaccination. As a result of his efforts, eyecare outreach activities and eye-screenings across many Indian-states were able to resume with COVID-safe protocols in place. For his exceptional-work which exhibited the very best of VisionSpring’s organisational values, Rahul was awarded the VisionSpring Values Champion Award-2021. Rahul has also won several other awards during his time at VisionSpring.

Rahul has closely worked with Government agencies, including the National Programme for Control of Blindness and Visual Impairment (NPCB&VI) and District Blindness Control Society (DBCS), to help scale eye-screenings, create access to eyeglasses, develop skills, and build competencies at the central level and across several states in India and in Nepal. He has travelled extensively and has closely partnered to create scaled social-impact in eyecare with prestigious eye hospitals and institutions in India and Nepal, such as Sitapur Eye Hospital, Indira Gandhi Eye Hospital and Research Centre, Akhand Jyoti Eye Hospital, ERC Eye Care, Kalyanam Karoti, Lions Eye Hospitals, Sankara Eye Hospital, Tara Sansthan, Muzaffarpur Eye Hospital, Ratan Jyoti Netralaya, Rotary Eye Hospitals, MGM Eye Institute, JL Rohatgi Memorial Eye Hospital, Shri Ganapati Netralaya, Leprosy Mission Trust Hospital, Sagarmatha Choudhary Eye Hospital (Nepal), Biratnagar Eye Hospital (Nepal), and many-others.

Rahul richly deserves the Eye Health Hero Award in the Change-makers category as his tireless efforts have helped more than a million people get eyeglasses, millions get screened for vision in the process, and more than half-a-million get COVID-relief. He is one of the most passionate advocates for making the world refractive error and presbyopia free.

“I believe that no one across the world should suffer from avoidable blindness due to refractive error and presbyopia. A simple pair of eyeglasses can transform people’s lives. Eyeglasses are a 700-year-old technology yet billions across the world still do not have access to them. My life’s mission is to put glasses on faces and provide the gift of clear vision to my fellow human beings. I am fortunate that through my role at VisionSpring I can make a big dent in this problem and improve the earning and learning potential, safety, and quality of life of people around the world. I consider this as a big responsibility and will continue to put my heart and soul to ensure that the mission of ‘Clear Vision for All’ is achieved.”

– Rahul Tiwari