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Retired Penticton optometrist Catharine Goheen said her life changed forever the first time she travelled to the Third World on a mission to help the poor through dispensing donated eyeglasses.
Goheen opened Dr. Specs Optical in Penticton 30 years ago. She retired five years ago. She has travelled across the Third World on mission work helping the poor annually almost every year over the past 25 years.
“My very first trip was to Guatemala about 25 years ago and my first mission was like my first love, I will never forget it,” said Goheen. “I had no idea when I went over there how a simple thing like a pair of reading glasses could changes lives … and prevent child welfare.
“It was literally an eye opening experience and one that changed my life forever.”
Goheen is getting ready for her next trip - this time to the Dang region of Nepal - and hopes once again to distribute up to 500 pairs of donated reading glasses, sunglasses and bifocals.
The generosity of residents from Penticton, Kelowna and the entire Okanagan region has been simply amazing over the past 25 years, said Goheen.
This year’s project is supported through Rotary Club of Kelowna Ogopogo and HER International organization, said Goheen.
She will be accepting donations of glasses until Nov. 16 and will be heading to Nepal the following day.
“As usual, I will be packing two very large suitcases with all the donated glasses and I will distribute them once I arrive as my destination in Nepal,” she said.
In poor regions of the world, improved vision care can mean the difference between a child being able pursue an education or being forced into child labour, said Goheen.
In all the developing countries she has visited and dispensed donated glasses, she has met mothers and fathers who have told her the glasses have helped them secure employment or helped their children return to school, she said.
Goheen said she chose the Dang region of Nepal for her latest mission after listening to a presentation from Kevin Edgecombe from the Rotary Club of Okopogo.
He detailed the extreme poverty and how families were so poor they felt forced to contract out their daughters to strangers.
In Nepal, families are so poor that they often “contract out their daughters for $50 a year” to people with more money in other villages, she said.
The Dang region in Nepal remains one of the last areas to still contract out girls, she said.
Although forced child labour was outlawed in Nepal since 2000, the parents are so poor and their daughters’ lives so hopeless at home, the parents still contact out their daughters annually, she said.
Girls as young as age six work night and day, are often fed poorly and don’t see their parents for years, with far too many ending up in the sex trade market, she said.
When you’re dealing with extreme poverty, every little gesture counts and providing these eye glasses is truly making a difference, she said.
“Our Okanagan used eyeglasses are making a difference all over the world, in Africa, Asia, Cook Islands, Philippines, India, South America, Central America and last year Sir Lanka,” she said. “Often, when people hit 40 years of age, their close vision is less clear. By the time they are 45 years old, most folks can’t see close to read, fix a bike or do craft work.
“In Third World countries, this means many poor adults are pulling their kids from school to do the parents’ job.”
So often, when she hands over a pair of used reading glasses, parents smile with joy knowing they can return to work and their children will go back to school, she said.
Her International has helped save close to 200 young girls from child labour and have placed 166 girls in school due to scholarship donations, she said.
They are also supporting a total of 900 mothers with life skills and jobs, she said.
Anyone wishing to make a donation can drop off your glasses at, Dr. Specs Optical in the Orchard Plaza in Penticton near Shoppers Drugs Mart and the Safeway grocery store.
For more information on how to sponsor a a scholarship, visit www.Herinternational.org.
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