Enactus is continuing to collaborate with Doctor Jacob Prabhakar’s vision to bring the gift of sight to India.
“Now I See” is an Enactus project led by students of Southern Adventist University and encourages social entrepreneurship to raise funds to help limit the number of cataract-affected patients in India. Cataracts affect the eyesight of 12 million people in India, and the Enactus team realized that action needed to be taken to help the cause. For the past year, the project team has collaborated with ophthalmologist Jacob Prabhakar, who has successfully reduced the time of corrective surgery for cataracts from a standard 30 minutes to three minutes at the cost of $75.
“We want to aid [Doctor Prabhakar] by tapping into the collegiate age,” said Now I See’s project manager Darryl Magno.
Magno and his team will be revisiting the successes of the previous year as they continue their mission to raise money for their cause.
Now I See’s goal for Southern is to merge the lines of business and art and form a platform of collaboration between them. The project has previously worked with student designers at Southern to help create a marketing strategy and plans to continue these efforts in the coming years.
“We want to showcase what artists from Southern Adventist University can do for social entrepreneurship and the gift of sight,” said Magno.
The project became successful in its previous year largely due to its guerrilla marketing campaign on Southern’s campus. The team designed and sold t-shirts to raise funds for the cause.
“A big thing that made us successful was the way we marketed the shirt,” said Jeanelle Arguelles, senior business administration and public relations major. “We looked though Instagram and found SAU students who had a large following and reached out to them to be influencers of the shirts.”
The Now I See team at Southern raised $6,000 in their previous year thanks to the donations from students and the Student Association. They plan to continue their marketing strategy and raise double that amount in the coming year.
Image credit: Elena Anunciado