Make Your Voice Matter for Vision in 2019

It’s early enough in 2019 for me to wish you a prosperous and Happy New Year! I wonder if you are like me and view each new year as a clean slate, an opportunity to start afresh and continue to build on the successes of the months and years that came before. For the Vision Impact Institute, 2019 will be both a building year and a chance to amplify our voice for vision.

Over the past five years, the Vision Impact Institute has been challenged with Giving Vision a Voice, and two parts of this statement resonate with me on a larger scale – the Voice and the Giving. Each of us has a VOICE that we lend to many different causes, whether we are defending our own rights or the rights of those who can’t speak for themselves, sharing personal insights with family and friends, teaching others from our own areas of expertise. We apply a voice to those platforms we most value.

I’ve realized our voice for vision comes in many ­­forms – from new research that brings credibility to the impact of good vision, to a parent encouraging a child to play outdoors that could ultimately slow the progression of myopia. From moments taken to educate others about the cost of poor vision, to testimonies in front of legislators that lead to policy change, our cause has power.

But a voice holds nothing if it is not given. When we launched the VII, the objective was to give a voice to vision – a cause that was oftentimes silent.

But in the years since our beginning, I have heard and joined multitudes of voices for vision, sometimes soft and other times booming. Today I realize the power behind any voice is the in the collective GIVING of that voice – and I’m encouraged by the choir of voices speaking up for the most unaddressed disability in the world.

I was recently reminded of a quote from Victor Hugo that went something like this, “A voice in the mountain is enough to let loose an avalanche.” In 2019, may our VOICE set change in motion as we continue GIVING power to a world in need of vision.

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