Nicolas Gérakis

On January 1, 2018, the “Solidarité HK” operation was launched, which the Hesteau/Klienkoff companies and the Voir La Vie association organized together. The aim of this internal challenge, open to KRYS staff from Rennes and its region, is to select 10 volunteer opticians who will train the teams of the optical centers of our NGO in Guinea.
4 one-week missions, spread out between October and December 2018 in order to provide all the skills necessary to strengthen vision correction practices in the centers of Conakry, Boké and Kindia. The last mission will allow an evaluation of the transmission of know-how and will identify the areas of progress to be achieved.
More than 200 people are involved in this challenge. The Voir La Vie office will meet with Breton directors and managers on February 2 to finalize the details of their participation. A fine example of North/South solidarity, both French and international!

Krys Group takes to the field. The group of optical brands, number 1 in France, is launching its campaign aimed at collecting old pairs of glasses in stores to offer them to those who need them on the other side of the world. To retrace how far a simple frame has come, Krys asked Cyril, a famous YouTuber, to head to Benin and visit the Voir La Vie ophthalmological unit.
An exciting and moving dive into the heart of a service that we opened just 2 years ago. The flagship action to come is screening in schools. Because equipping a child is not just about treating their eye problem. It also prevents him from dropping out of school.

Whether they are called Rotary, Krys Group Foundation or Challenge Solidarité HK, the logos of our NGO partners now watch over the destiny of our Guinean structure. Equipment, consumables, training... were provided thanks to their generosity and the interest they have in our development program

At the end of the “Solidarité HK” Challenge evaluation mission, Guillaume Millet, Guillaume Créach and Céline Baratte installed the identification plaque for the ophthalmological unit and the optical center. In the presence of the entire team of Dr Ismael Mamou, including Golé Bilivogui (TSO) and Balla-Moussa Diakité (Optometrist/optician). A fair return, 8 years after the opening of one of the 8 operational structures of our association in Guinea!

The Krys Group is resolutely united. The French eyewear manufacturer, support of our NGO, has decided to take action and is investing in training. Employees of Olivier HESTEAU and Serge KLIENKOFF's companies took part in an internal challenge called “Solidarité HK”. 10 of the 120 employees were selected to leave in October in the 3 optical centers of Voir la Vie en Guinée. Refraction training, application of the Make It Easy protocol... three weeks dedicated to a great exchange of know-how between the group's young opticians and local staff from the Conakry, Kindia and Boké units.
Lionel SIMON, administrator of our NGO and optician in Fleurance led the preparation mission and met on September 19 in Rennes with the 4 Challenge mission leaders. Claire LENOUVEL, secretary general of the association, hosted the first 3 training missions on site which were held, from October 1 to 21, in our optical centers in Conakry, Kindia and Boké. Finally, the evaluation mission completed the program at the end of November. And already, the specialized press is echoing it.

It was by meeting Professor Soulé Alamou, focal point of the National Plan to Combat Blindness in Benin, that Voir la Vie was able to dedicate its program of local fairground consultations. For several years, with the initial assistance of the Aubagnaise association Au Cœur des Hommes, now withdrawn from the project, we had acquired a stock of kits for the treatment of cataracts.
These phacokits, containing all the equipment and consumables necessary for carrying out surgery, were designed by our association with the valuable assistance of Dr Jean Marie André and developed in one of the largest international manufacturing units in India. At very low cost and entirely disposable (in order to avoid the risks of transmission of infectious diseases), these kits will now be the subject of advanced strategy missions to rural populations far from the university hospitals of the two large Beninese cities of Porto- Novo and Cotonou. With his staff and with support from the staff of our Pobè unit, Professor Alamou will be able to operate on 200 people suffering from cataracts and at risk of certain blindness. The delivery of the packages took place last month and gave us the opportunity to store the 12 boxes in the Professor's own office, who was so happy with this offering that he wanted to look after them personally!

For several years now, Voir la Vie has been in partnership with the Krys Group Foundation. Within the network of this French optical giant is the HK company. Olivier Hesteau and Serge Klienkoff, the founders, have set up around twenty stores in Brittany. Together, we have imagined an internal challenge which will offer the opportunity for 10 of their employees to go to Guinea to train their optician counterparts.
Launched in January, the “HK Solidarity” challenge should reveal the identities of those selected in June. This will be followed by a summer dedicated to preparing future trainers for departure in October 2018. Four missions will distribute volunteer opticians to our centers in Kindia and Boké and in Conakry (within AMSO, our partner).
Extensive training in refraction, improvement of patient care conditions, post-operative follow-ups, implementation of the Make It Easy protocol... are all projects that await them.
The last mission, called an evaluation, will make it possible to test what has been learned and to guide Voir la Vie on the areas of progress to be worked on.
Claire Lenouvel, general secretary of our NGO, will take up residence for a month in Guinea to prepare for the arrival of the trainers and support them in carrying out their successive missions. An opportunity for her to learn to speak Soussou!

In the photo: Abdoulaye NABE, director of AMSO (Conakry) and Claire LENOUVEL, secretary of Voir La Vie

Hundreds of frames. Thousands of pairs of ophthalmic lenses. Refraction equipment. All the furniture for an optical care unit. Equipment for an ENT practice. This is the volume of our NGO’s next container. In storage in Marseille in the association's technical room, these cubic meters must be conditioned for upcoming shipment to Guinea.
The ophthalmological and optical centers of Kindia, Boké and Conakry will soon be supplied. Optician teams are running out of basic materials for making corrective glasses. A sign of the good health of the activity of our structures for treating eye disorders. Ophthalmic medical and paramedical staff are also waiting for replacement equipment or equipment that will allow them to develop their intervention methods. Before the arrival in October of teams of French volunteers who will spend a month with our local staff for better training of their know-how, it is essential to ensure that the technical platforms of our units are operational.
Faithful to the associations with which we have a history of cooperation, Voir la Vie has approached Guinée Solidarité Provence for the logistical part of the loading. Collaboration started between us 20 years ago when we filled our first container together.

Life is just a story of encounters. Three young Matamais, leaders of a development association from their native Senegalese region, diagnose a significant deficit in the provision of eye care in Matam, a large city in the north-east of Senegal where they are natives. Via the internet, they began looking for a structure capable of supporting them in developing an intervention program.
Our NGO comes out of the hat and, after a few working sessions in Paris where ADM's headquarters are located, the Matam Development Association and Voir la Vie decide to soon open an optical center in Senegal. The inaugural ribbon is not planned for right away, aware of the distance we still have to go to get there. But action being the common DNA of our two associations, the reflection phase carried out during the first half of 2018 will launch an evaluation mission this summer. The meeting of local authorities will make it possible to position the current administrative provisions. An audit of existing medical structures, an exchange with public health personnel, an identification of possible locations... are part of the menu that awaits the participating representatives of our two associations.
The experience of Voir la Vie in Senegal goes back some time, when we set up an ambitious program aimed at providing them with cataract operating kits as well as 3 other neighboring West African countries including Guinea, Gambia and Mali. Finding Senegal again is a great challenge but also a great joy because the welcome there is so fond in our memories!

In the photo: Abou NDIONGUE, secretary and Abdoul DIAW, president

Since the withdrawal of the Au Cœur des Hommes association from the Benin ophthalmological program, Voir la Vie has taken over the project management of the Pobè unit inaugurated in October 2016. This rise to the front line involves our NGO in the pursuit of activities for the treatment of eye diseases in the Plateau, a very vast region of which the town of Pobè is the brand new prefecture. Recently detached from Porto Novo on which it depended, the territory of Pobè became an administrative region in its own right.
Our ophthalmological unit, based within a regional hospital destined to become a regional hospital, takes on all the more importance as it must today be able to meet the needs of a population numbering no less than 400,000 people. To do this, we had to agree on the rights and duties of our association on Beninese soil. This has been done since April 30 when we signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Health. This framework document defines the fundamentals that bind the signatories. Through the creation of unity and the supervision that applies, Voir la Vie has fulfilled its commitments. He expects the same from local authorities who must complete the appointment of health personnel who we will then train to improve care for the populations, organize rural cataract surgery missions and develop the optical sector.
A little paper for a big adventure.

The school screening program is in full swing in Kindia (Guinea).
The team of Dr KABA, department head of our ophthalmological unit, led a prevention campaign among the city's first and final year students. Several high school girls have been screened for advanced myopia. After a thorough eye exam, they were made a pair of corrective glasses so that they could continue their studies in much better conditions.
A small, gracious gesture which, according to them unanimously, considerably changes their point of view on their schooling!