Mirjahan Choudhury receives a free eye screening at the Rangia Post office in India.Subhamoy Bhattacharjee for NPR hide caption In recent years, Sangita Kalita has watched as her mother and mother-in-law go to the local temple — called a naamghar — in Assam State, India and leave disappointed.Each visit, their hope was to read the sacred Hindu texts, "but due to vision issues, they faced a lot of problems recognizing the small letters in the book," explains Kalita.According to the World Health Organization, they are among more than 800 million people worldwide who suffer from presbyopia — age-related loss of close-up vision — for which basic reading glasses would help.
Yet, according to WHO, in many lower-income countries, fewer than one in four people who need eyeglasses have them.Kalita says for her family, getting reading glasses was simply too complicated and expensive.While in many high-income countries, readers are available in all kinds of stores, in lower-resourced settings, getting a pair often requires a trip to the hospital or a specialized optical shop, usually in a big city.Kalita is trying to change that.In northeastern India, she's part of a team testing a new effort to address the challenge of getting vision care in remote areas.
The idea involves the country's massive network of post offices.Kalita used to be a school teacher.Now, she spends her days at a red and white kiosk that's against the bright white walls of the post office in the town of Rangiya.From that vantage point, she watches as customers come in.
Some are there to mail packages while others use a wide variety of services offered in Indian post offices, such as opening and accessing small savings accounts.Kalita notices how they go about their task."A lot of old people come in who are not even able to fill out the deposit form," she says.When she sees ...