WT Guest Starts Eyeglasses Nonprofit for Populations in Need Around the World
In 2024, a traveler on one of our Namibia trips noticed a need for corrective eyewear among local residents with whom she interacted. Two years later, in spring 2026, she returned to Namibia after the launch of her nonprofit, T-Up Vision, to distribute eyeglasses. This is her story.
My first memory from Namibia is Minnie, a four-month-old elephant, still figuring out life using her trunk. I loved watching how the herd kept close around her, how those great big animals moved carefully around this tiny one. Those elephants are so full of personality. Definitely a special day in my life.
Being on the ground with the wildlife felt different from anywhere I’d been before, like being at the beginning of time. The landscape was magical, the sky enormous and blue by day, full of stars by night.
That trip gave me a lot of those extraordinary moments, but one quiet moment has stayed with me more than any of the others. It started at Camp Doros when one of the staff members was writing down an order; and, as he wrote, was holding his notepad directly in front of his nose. I had one of those small, quiet seeds of recognition : a ‘huh’ moment and I filed it away.
Starting T-Up Vision
In May 2025, I was in Bali, gathering with friends before a trip to Wakatobi. I spent the day with a young woman I’ve known for years and mentioned what I’d been turning over in my mind, to bring corrective eyewear to underserved communities, and that I was starting to think about doing something about it. She looked at me and said: “If you do it, will you do it here?” The seed sparked to life.
T-Up Vision was incorporated one month after I returned home. We use eyecharts and also an instrument called the QuickSee, made by PlenOptika—a handheld device that measures eye refraction the same way the large machine in your optometrist’s office does, except it fits in a bag and is very transportable. I pulled together a team with help from friends who happened to be attorneys, doctors, people with nonprofit experience—and more than a few airplane seatmates who turned out to have exactly the right advice and encouragement, at the right moment. They all helped me form best practices for forming the company as well as vision screening in foreign countries. In August of 2025, T-Up Vision received non-profit status, and we were off!
Going Back to Namibia in Spring 2026
This past spring, I went back to Namibia as T-Up Vision Inc. Partnering with the Save the Rhino Trust and the Conservation Travel Foundation made logistical sense. Both organizations assisted with transportation, lodging, translating, safety, and planning.
With the Save the Rhino Trust, the staff was the dream team: registering rangers, translating, and keeping the participants organized. Nearly 100 rangers and staff rotated through over five days for physical and mental health evaluations—and, for the first time, vision screening. I remembered these SRT rangers from my 2024 trip as heroes: brave, rugged, humble people who protect endangered wildlife across vast desert terrain. Many needed reading glasses. Their distance vision, on the other hand, was better than 20/20 on average. It makes sense and makes them excellent at their jobs.
With the Conservation Travel Foundation, William, one of my guides from the 2024 Wilderness Travel trip, ‘reupped’ as guide to drive, plan and translate for the T-Up Vision visit. Having that existing relationship meant we could get right to work. The Conservation Travel Foundation was extremely generous and organized at every turn, we visited three conservancy areas among the indigenous Namibians who live on and steward this land. These communities made me realize they are not underserved, they are UNserved. William drove us 2000 kilometers throughout these conservancies and also ensured we had someone with us who could navigate our route and also speak the very local dialect or language of that tribe. We were an impressive operation.
At one home, I met a woman in her seventies. She couldn’t read, and she also couldn’t thread her needle to sew. We tested a few pairs of glasses. When +3.00 readers brought things into focus, she asked her granddaughter to go get her needle and thread. She threaded that needle herself. And then she hugged me. Another man said that he had not been able to read for a handful of years, now with his +1.50 readers he is able to study for promotion to further his career.
On May 5th, we stopped at Camp Doros to drop off the glasses for the Save the Rhino Trust rangers. The shipment had been held up in Johannesburg—apparently this is normal—so we’d kept careful records of each ranger’s needed lens power and packaged every pair with their name on it, to be picked up at Camp Doros and delivered to SRT headquarters at Palmweg. When I took out my phone to take some pictures, my camera roll memories came up. I had been at Camp Doros exactly two years before. May 5th, 2024 -the anniversary of the afternoon I first noticed the man holding that notepad in front of his nose. Seemed the universe was closing a loop.
Be a traveler, not a tourist. Engage with those around you, to understand how they live in this world. If you’ve traveled with Wilderness Travel—if you’ve been to Namibia, or anywhere, and came home with something that stuck with you—pay attention, maybe there is something you are able to do to help, even just a little.
What’s Next for T-Up Vision
Plans are already in the works to return to Namibia in November 2026, this time working with the Elephant-Human Relations Aid and Lion Rangers, with more work with the Conservation Travel Foundation. To learn more about T-Up Vision, visit T-Up Vision.
November 14, 2023
