Jubilee 2025, free eye tests on offer from the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Italia Foundation

The OneSight EssilorLuxottica Italia Foundation has inaugurated a new permanent optical center at the Community of Sant’Egidio in Rome’s Tuscolano district. The initiative, sponsored by the Dicastery for Evangelization’s Section for Fundamental Questions of Evangelization in the World, the Lazio Region and the Municipality of Rome, will help care for the visual health of the most vulnerable people in society.

The center will offer free eye tests and arrange donations of spectacles to those who cannot afford specialist care, ensuring access to essential health services. Ophthalmologists from the IRCCS Fondazione Bietti will be present two afternoons a week to carry out the free checks, with further diagnostic investigations being made available at the British Hospital. This solidarity network is aimed at improving the quality of life of the most vulnerable and offering new opportunities for social inclusion.

The collaboration between the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Italia Foundation and the Community of Sant’Egidio is based on their shared values of solidarity, inclusion, and mutual respect. This model has already led to the creation similar initiatives elsewhere, such as the centers opened in Naples and Rome in previous years. During the Jubilee Year, the Foundation will also organize additional temporary eye clinics in the city during major events such as the Jubilee of the Sick and the World of Health and the Jubilee of the Poor.

In total, it is expected that over 1,500 appointments will be made and around 1,300 pairs of spectacles will be provided.

The initiative has received praise from institutional and religious figures, including Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, who emphasized how the project embodies the spirit of the Jubilee, offering hope and assistance to those most in need.

Tobia Zevi, the Convener for Heritage and Housing Policies at Rome city council, also praised the importance of the solidarity project in the wider context of growing inequalities.

With this initiative the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation aims to underline how the Jubilee can offer concrete opportunities to make a difference to the lives of those most in need.