By Olivia Allen
On Saturday, May 2nd, SEI students, faculty and staff will travel to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic to study microfinance and economic development in the Dominican Republic and Cuba. Leadership at Esperanza International, a microfinance institution and Grameen replicant will task students from Northeastern and Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) with a research questions surrounding their lending portfolio, consisting of both Haitian and Dominican borrowers. Northeastern students will work collaboratively with Dominican students to examine Esperanza’ portfolio through in-depth field interview with borrowers in rural, semi-urban, and urban dwellings.
In addition to research-driven field work, students will oversee the implementation of SEI’s impact investment in VisionSpring, Warby Parker’s non-profit partner throughout the field study program. The high-performing nonprofit, which received a grant as a result of the Tom Moore Impact Investment pitch in the fall of 2013, seeks to address the gap in vision services in the developing world through equipping micro-entrepreneurs to sell eyeglasses, in turn empowering themselves and their community. VisionSpring, which has scaled to reach entrepreneurs in over 20 countries and partnered with leading social enterprises like BRAC, Living Goods, and One Acre Fund, estimates that 544 million people in the developing world could have their vision improved by simple corrective lenses. SEI students will lead VisionSpring’s presence into its 25th country through the distribution of eyeglasses in the Dominican Republic.
Over the course of three-weeks in the Dominican Republic, students will disburse glasses and training materials to high-performing organizations. One new partnership is with Mission Emanuel, a nonprofit that seeks to provides health and sanitation services, along with economic opportunity for poor residents in Santo Domingo. Alta Gracia, a social business dedicated to paying workers a living wage for their work in an apparel factory will also receive eyeglasses for their employees. This partnership is especially important, as the intensive, piece meal work employees perform on a daily basis requires adequate vision in order to be productive.
Lastly, VisionSpring’s vision entrepreneur model will be best manifested by MOSCTHA, an organization that promotes the establishment of schools, health centers, sport centers, libraries, agricultural and industrial production cooperatives or groups to chronically underserved Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic. Female community leaders hailing from different rural bateyes will partner with MOSCTHA’s mobile health clinic and facilitate the vision testing and the sale of eyeglasses in their communities, most of which are currently devoid of health and vision services. While serving a pressing social need, the women will also generate additional income through their sales, thus leveraging a bifurcated impact.
