This year, Specsavers and The Fred Hollows Foundation celebrate 10 years of partnering to close the gap in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander eye health.
Together, we believe that everyone should have access to good quality and affordable eye care and that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People can exercise their right to sight and good health.
Over the past 10 years, Spesavers has donated over $4 million to The Foundation. As part of this effort to make Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander eye care more visible, Specsavers have created Limited Edition Frames with Aboriginal Artists to feature their art on the frames.
$25 from each frame will be donated to The Fred Hollows Foundation’s work in Australia to restore sight, improve access to eye health care and build a workforce of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People to deliver this care.
This year the frames will launch on Thursday, 11 November and be available in stores around Australia.
This year Specsavers has teamed up with Contemporary Aboriginal Artist, Rheanna Lotter, a.k.a
Ngandabaa.
The artwork for this year’s frames is called Unity. The artwork represents the unity of the Indigenous community past, present, and future.
Rheanna describes the heart of this year’s artwork as
“always guided by our Ancestors and our Elders, we come together as one. By coming together, we enable the acknowledgement of our past, and move towards a more united future.”
The Fred Hollows Foundation CEO, Ian Wishart, says access to eye care in Australia isn’t one-size-fits-all.
“Ninety percent of the problems Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults suffer from are preventable or treatable. If you’re Indigenous and live remotely, your access to something as simple as a cataract surgery might be two, three or four years longer than if you are in a higher socio-economic group. A wealthier Australian may notice vision loss and go to a private specialist before they lose their ability to drive their car. But many Indigenous people can go years before they are screened. By then, they are almost blind – or may have been blind for several years.”
Specsavers, alongside The Fred Hollows Foundation, is committed to making eye care more equitable. Over the last decade, Specsavers has helped fund initiatives such as The Lion’s Outback Vision Van, a mobile eye clinic that provides ophthalmology care to patients in rural and remote parts of Western Australia.
Specsavers’ Head of Sustainability, Cathy Rennie Matos, says: “Specsavers and The Fred Hollows Foundation share a belief that everyone should be able to access high quality eyecare and we are so proud to support the incredibly important work The Foundation is doing to close the gap by improving access to eye health services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
“We’re also so grateful for the support of our customers in helping us to make this difference in our community. While a lot of great progress has been made over the past 10 years, we still have a long way to go and these limited-edition frames are just one way that we can raise money for The Foundation and awareness for Indigenous eye health.”
Priced from $199 for 2 pairs single vision, the limited-edition frames are available exclusively at Specsavers from 11 November.
For more information or to purchase the frames online visit the
Specsavers website.
PHOTO CREDIT: Specsavers (2021)