As a result of the profound need for optometric vision services throughout the third world, Waterloo has begun a student run chapter of VOSH international. VOSH (Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity) is an international agency whose mandate is to facilitate the provision and sustainability of vision care worldwide to people who can neither afford nor obtain such care. In Dec. 2001 they partnered with the World Health Organization and pledged to eliminate preventable blindness by the year 2020.