A Brilliant Birthday Benefit – Thank You!

Posted on by Seva Foundation
Larry and Wavy Drawing

With headliners that included Lucinda Williams and Seth MacFarlane as host, San Francisco’s August Hall lived up to its name when Larry Brilliant’s 80th birthday celebration rolled onto its stage on August 24.

Along with BFF Wavy Gravy and his wife Jahanara Romney, Larry and Girija Brilliant, and a few hundred friends and colleagues filled the venue with what can only be described as love. Jai and Ezra Uttal, Krishna Das, and Salman Ahmed spun their special magic as they strummed and sang. Seth MacFarlane crooned songbook favorites and made the entire house – performers and audience – feel like part of the Seva community.

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Seva Foundation Releases Landmark Child Eye Report for World Sight Day

Posted on by Dr. Brad Wong, Chief Economist, Seva Foundation
Photo of Nepali students by Praful Lal Shresta.

Across low-and-middle-income countries, less than half of 10-year-old children can read. This alarming phenomenon has been labelled by education experts around the world as the global ‘learning crisis’: A bitter-sweet situation in which we have achieved near universal primary education, including gender parity, but in which children are not achieving sufficient mastery of basic literacy and numeracy.

Policymakers will need to use a variety of tools to address the learning deficit. One promising but under-considered intervention is hiding in plain sight: eyeglasses.

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