As cargo goes, it’s pretty tame. Children’s eyeglass frames and delicate eye care instruments don’t bite, growl or need feeding - making them an unlikely shipping load for Worldwide Animal Travel. But thanks to a whole lot of people pulling together, Worldwide Animal Travel and the international eye care charity Seva Canada are working to send thousands of eye care supplies to Tanzania for pediatric eye care programs throughout eastern Africa. Sending eye care supplies is unusual for Worldwide Animal Travel, a Vancouver-based company at YVR that specializes in sending animals around the globe. But they made an exception for Seva. Although you can purchase adult glasses in eastern Africa, children’s frames are simply unavailable at any price. Without them, children’s vision will not develop properly and they will be condemned to a lifetime of blindness or low vision. “When I arrive with a shipment of children’s glasses, I love to hear what exotic animals they’ve been shipping. One week they’d just sent two giant Pacific octopi from Vancouver to Spain. Another time they were sending a polar bear from Edmonton to Luxembourg,” says Heather Wardle, Development Director for Seva Canada. “They don’t mind our boxes because they’re pretty easy to handle compared to their normal client’s cargo.”

Tanzanian child with new glasses after cataract surgery

Seva Canada has been working to improve the vision of children in Africa over the past three years and thanks to the generosity of Canadian optical companies like Perfect Optical and OGI, Seva has shipped over 5000 children’s glasses and low vision devices to Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, with the help of Worldwide Animal Travel. People travel from far and wide to Tanzania, Malawi and Madagascar to see stunning landscapes and extraordinary animals but thanks to this unlikely collaboration, thousands of children in Africa can now see the beauty of their own land and its animals.