Visual Campus' project for students' visual health in universities

Offering university students who come from families with a particularly low ISEE income access to eye examinations and, when necessary, prescription glasses: this is the objective of the memorandum of understanding signed today between the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Italia Foundation and CRUI - Conference of Italian University Rectors, presented in Rome in the presence of the Minister for Universities and Research, Anna Maria Bernini.

"The welfare of students," emphasised Bernini, "is not an abstract principle, but a concrete priority to be given shape with targeted interventions. Guaranteeing access to essential services such as eye examinations means removing obstacles that can affect the quality of study, health and opportunities for everyone. The protocol signed today launches a virtuous path that directly supports the most fragile students, bringing prevention and care tools to universities and contributing to making the university experience more equitable, inclusive and caring. Investing in students' well-being means investing in their future and, together, in the future of the country'.

The agreement stems from the awareness that economic difficulties can limit access to eye examinations and the purchase of glasses, which are essential not only for the health but also for the educational and personal development of students. Through the Campus Visivo project, the Foundation intends to make a concrete contribution to combating this phenomenon by bringing eye tests directly to universities for students in more fragile economic conditions.

The protocol defines a framework for national collaboration to progressively extend the programme to Italian universities, with the aim of guaranteeing a growing number of students the possibility of tackling their university course in the best possible conditions. In this context, the CRUI will foster dialogue between the Foundation and the various Italian universities, promoting adhesion on the part of interested universities and supporting communication for the benefit of students belonging to families with a particularly low ISEE income.
"In recent years we have learnt to look at student wellbeing in an increasingly broader way. And health is also part of this vision," said Laura Ramaciotti, CRUI president: "Good health is not a 'plus': it is the foundation on which everything else is built. This is why I consider Campus Visivo an extremely important project that, by focusing above all on students in economically fragile situations, will significantly contribute to removing an obstacle to the right to study."

Specifically, the Foundation will take care of the organisational and logistical aspects related to carrying out eye examinations and eyesight checks, also providing the necessary equipment and spectacle frames for the students who will need them following the examinations.
For Leonardo Maria del Vecchio, President of the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Italia Foundation, "investing in the visual health of students means opening the way to new opportunities. Visual health can become an invisible but decisive factor: if you do not see well, you do not study well, and when this happens you risk limiting your autonomy and freedom to build your own path. It is in this context that the Campus Visivo project was born, with the aim of removing a barrier that can affect the quality of study and the daily lives of students, restoring confidence and creating the conditions for everyone to express their full potential. When we help a student to see better, we help him to imagine his future. And when a society helps its young people imagine their future, it is already building its own'.