LEXINGTON, MA–Vision-Aid, a Lexington, MA based non-profit focused on Enabling, Educating and Empowering the visually impaired, is celebrating its 20th Anniversary this year by emphasizing the importance of helping the visually impaired to become independent.
On Nov. 15, 2024, Vision-Aid will be honored with the “Non-Profit Organization of the Year” at the New England Choice Awards gala at Burlington Marriott Hotel in Burlington, MA. Over 400 business, community, healthcare and academic leaders will attend the gala.
To buy a ticket for the gala, please click here.
Vision-Aid has developed a great model for non-profit and philanthropic organizations. It’s all-volunteer team for this year, for example 15-member Board of Directors (BOD), 15-member Board of Advisors (BOA), and 6-member Council of Ambassadors (COA), in addition to countless volunteers in India.
Here is Q/A with Vision-Aid’s Volunteer President Lalit Sudan:
INDIA New England News: What is the mission of Vision-Aid?
Lalit Sudan: Our mission is to Enable, Educate and Empower the visually impaired. We do this by supporting, motivating, and mobilizing preeminent Eye Hospitals, Blind Schools, Vision Professionals, Technology innovators, Governments and Non-Governmental Organizations serving the visually impaired from under-privileged segments of Indian society.
INE: How is Vision-Aid different from other vision-related organizations?
LS: There are many organizations focused on primary eye care and refraction (for example, doing eye screening and giving out spectacles) or doing cataract surgeries, etc. Very few organizations globally are focused on the area of rehabilitating the visually impaired who suffer from irreversible vision conditions which cannot be corrected or cured. These are individuals who are blind or have low vision (legally blind).
Vision-Aid’s strength and unique differentiator in delivering rehabilitation to these individuals lies in our holistic and comprehensive model of vision rehabilitation which has been developed over the years in consultation with many leading experts globally.
INE: Some examples of Vision-Aid work?
LS: Our resource centers provide comprehensive rehabilitation designed to enable, educate and empower the visually impaired. We leverage our big network of eye hospitals, blind schools, technology innovators and other resources to bring state of the art, comprehensive rehabilitation to the visually impaired.
Our programs help them to lead independent lives with dignity. Vision-Aid provides thought leadership in addressing important and evolving issues.
A few recent examples are the applications of AI in rehabilitation, interventions for Cerebral Visual Impairment (CVI), the leading cause of childhood blindness and cutting edge research in the areas of low vision assessment and interventions.
INE: How many visually-impaired people have served in last 20 years?
LS: Vision-Aid has served over 100,000 visually impaired in 20 years. We delivered individualized, tailored and customized rehabilitation services and solutions based on specific needs and situations of these visually impaired services, so this is not a cookie cutter solution.
INE: What are your plans for the next 20 years and beyond?
LS: Our vision is for an India where all individuals who are visually impaired will be able to live productive lives with independence and dignity. These visually impaired will know that help is available and will have easy access to Rehabilitation Centers and resources including free or low-cost, state of the art technological solutions (such as the innovative application of AI).
It took us twenty years to serve the first 100,000, but our growth is accelerating as we scale. We aspire to reach our next 100,000 in just the next 3 years and expect this exponential growth trajectory to continue into the future.
INE: How is the organization operated and managed?
LS: While we are all volunteers in the USA, many in our leadership team – such as our President, Founders and Vice Chair work the equivalent of full time leaders of other organizations to assure that we meet our Donors fiscal expectations and are effective in helping the VI community with finding the most suitable solutions with highest cost effectiveness.
Vision-Aid India is an independent duly registered NGO organization and is a very accomplished team of both volunteer leaders and highly trained professional staff who direct and oversee execution of all our programs, helping us to effectively manage our large and growing network of hospitals, blind schools and resource centers, and delivering skills and education in tune with the needs of the visually impaired.
Vision-Aid USA was founded by Ramakrishna Raju. He serves as the volunteer Executive Director of Vision-Aid USA. He holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the Pennsylvania State University, and a Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) degree in Information Management Systems from Harvard University Extension school. He earned his Bachelor of Engineering Degree from BIT, Mesra, India.
Revathy Ramakrishna is the Co-Founder and volunteer Vice-President of Vision-Aid USA. She and her husband have been involved as volunteers since Vision-Aid‘s inception in 2004. An Electronics engineer and Health Informatics professional by training, she works as a Sr. Manager at Fresenius Medical Care, a premier health care company focused on delivering high quality care to people with chronic renal conditions. She has been recognized with several awards and citations for significant contributions in her field of work throughout her career.
Veena Handa is Vice Chair of Vision-Aid. She holds a Master’s degree from Lady Irwin College in India and since she arrived in USA in 1972, she has worked for 3 of the leading Fortune 500 Financial Institutions (MetLife, Fidelity Investments and finally John Hancock Financial). During her career, she was a mentor and a coach for employees, as well as an advocate for Career Development. She earned a STAR of Excellence Award for Continuous Improvement and initiated Robotics Process Automation for the organization.
Since her retirement in late 2017, she has been volunteering for different organizations including as Advisory Board member for Vision-Aid, Board Member for Nonprofit Net, Money Management volunteer for Minuteman Senior Services. As a volunteer at Lexington Community Center, she works on multiple projects and has delivered Budget Planning and Retirement Planning talks for Youth and Seniors. Most recently during the Covid pandemic, she joined “Sew We Care” Team which provided over 20,000 masks and scrub caps to Hospitals, Health Centers and Senior Centers and Veena personally made over 1,000 masks and scrub caps as part of this team.
Puran Dang is Chairman Emeritus of Vision-Aid. He has been a community leader for over fifty years. He has founded many organizations of international repute. He founded the very first IIT Alumni Association of the IIT Alumni, which has evolved into PAN-IIT all over the world. Over the last 25 years, he has been Chairman and now Chairman Emeritus of Vision-Aid, MIT Heritage of The Arts of South Asia – MITHAS and Ekal Vidyalaya, TIE-Boston, Akshaya Patra, Indian Americans of Lexington (IAL), are a few other organizations where he held leadership roles. He is a Professor of Leadership Entrepreneurship at Adamas University, Kolkata as well as an ambassador of the Perkins School for the Blind. Helping visually challenged children and adults is his major goal. Mr. Dang has won many Awards for his humanitarian service. His alma-mater IIT Kharagpur honored him with first “Distinguished Service Award” out of some 45,000 alumni. Most inspiring for him is the love of his family and friends who always stand with him.
