Seeing clearly

MEXICO: Does social consciousness really pay off? Designer Yves Béhar thinks so. He is heading a programme that gives free designer eyeglasses to poor Mexican children.

The reason many poor schoolchildren don’t have glasses is often not only the cost, but also the stigma of wearing “uncool” glasses. To solve this problem, Béhar has come up with a stylish new design that is both cheap and durable.

See Better to Learn Better, a programme run jointly by Béhar's Fuseproject, the Mexican government, and Augen Optics, plans to give away 300,000 pairs of these glasses to 6- to 18-year-old pupils in Mexico each year. The glasses will be offered with a choice of five frames, three sizes and seven colours.

Béhar has improved the production process so that the glasses cost only about $10 per pair to make.  "What I'm always trying to demonstrate is that you can get high-quality design at a low price point," he told The Christian Science Monitor.

"You can get high-quality design at a low price." 

Another social project in which Béhar was involved is One Laptop Per Child, which distributes laptops to schoolchildren in developing countries. Some analysts say this stimulated the commercial market for low-cost laptops, and it is quite possible that the new glasses will have similar effects on the market for eyeglasses.