Essilor Joins Project Agora

Friday, January 17 2020 | 09 h 28 min | News, Press Release

Essilor supports the opening of the first access point to vision care in Cote d’Ivoire as part of project Agora. This was jointly inaugurated by the Vice President of the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire, Daniel Kablan Duncan, and President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, on December 21.

Project Agora aims to improve the lives of disadvantaged populations by facilitating their access to health and sports. As part of this project, Essilor has partnered with local optician-optometrist and contactologist, David Diakite, to create a visual health access point, within a centrally located store for the highly populated Koumassi district of Abidjan. This will allow local residents to benefit from eye tests and prescription glasses made by the Essilor Group.

Just like in many African countries, the optical sector is dynamic by creating disruptive initiatives developing access to professional vision care and preventing many from having good vision and protecting their eyes.

In line with its mission of ‘improving lives by improving sight’, Essilor has been supporting initiatives all over the world to improve access to visual health and provide solutions for people who do not have access to vision care, underserved populations and rural communities.

In Africa, Essilor has created Africa Retail Solutions, a dedicated division which designs and deploys innovative solutions to address infrastructural issues and the lack of eye care professionals in order to meet all visual needs and at all price points. The ‘My Vision Shop’ concept, which has already been deployed by Essilor in Mozambique, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, allows aspiring entrepreneurs to set-up their own optical stores by benefitting from the Group’s turnkey support. This includes an installation kit with necessary tools to open a store, as well as frames, lenses, instruments, software, training, etc.

Click HERE for the full press release.