Africa and Asia: Volunteer Service

[Guest guest]

Please forward widely. Currently accepting applications for 2008 and 2009.

Unite For Sight Volunteer Abroad Opportunities: As Featured Weekly On CNN

International and Recently in The New York Times

Volunteer Abroad in Summer, Fall, Winter, or Spring:

http://www.uniteforsight.org/intl_volunteer

WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF VOLUNTEERS LIKE YOU, UNITE FOR SIGHT RESTORED SIGHT TO

10,062 PATIENTS AND PROVIDED EYE CARE TO 300,000 IN 2006 AND 2007

How Do I Apply? The application as well as complete details about Unite For

Sight's international opportunities are available at

http://www.uniteforsight.org/intl_volunteer/

Who Is Eligible To Volunteer Abroad?: Volunteers are 18 years and older, and

there is no upper age limit. Volunteers range from undergraduate/college

students to medical and optometry students, public health students and

professionals, business students, filmmakers and photographers, nurses and

nursing students, social workers, physician's assistants, teachers and

educators, opticians, optometrists and ophthalmologists.

Unite For Sight welcomes volunteers who may not have previous health or eye care

experience. Volunteers receive all necessary training from Unite For Sight so

that they are able to assist eye doctors with community eye outreach programs.

Unite For Sight also welcomes volunteers to participate as photographers and

filmmakers.

What is Unite For Sight's Mission? Unite For Sight is a 501©(3) nonprofit

organization that empowers communities worldwide to improve eye health and

eliminate preventable blindness.

Unite For Sight's work to prevent blindness and restore sight is featured weekly

on CNN INTERNATIONAL from September 2007-August 2008.

What Do Volunteers Do?: Volunteers receive hands-on clinical experience while

assisting doctors in remote, rural villages. Volunteers learn about

international health and eye care, learn clinical skills while working with

patients and doctors, and, in one program location, have an opportunity to

practice cataract surgery on a goat's eye.

The goal of Unite For Sight and its partner eye clinics and communities is to

create eye disease-free communities. Unite For Sight's volunteers (local and

visiting) work with partner eye clinics to provide eye care in communities

without previous access. The eye clinic's eye doctors and Unite For Sight

volunteers jointly provide community-based screening programs in rural villages.

The clinic's eye doctors diagnose and treat eye disease in the field, and

surgical patients are brought to the eye clinic for surgery. Patients receive

free surgery funded by Unite For Sight so that no patient remains blind due to

lack of funds. Volunteers immediately see the joy on patients' faces when their

sight is restored after years of blindness. These memories last a lifetime.

While helping the community, volunteers are in a position to witness and draw

their own conclusions about the failures and inequities of global health

systems. It broadens their view of what works, and what role they can have to

insure a health system that works for everyone and that leaves no person blind

in the future.

What Do Volunteers Say?:

" During my volunteering experience, I realized that Unite for Sight's service is

a campaign for the salvation of humanity that allows the light of compassion to

shine through each of us. I believe it is this display of altruism and

commitment that makes the organization's service so virtuous and treasured by

both volunteers and patients. After all, making a difference in the world is not

so difficult if only one would care enough to sacrifice a part of oneself in

order to change the world for the better. My experience as a Unite for Sight

volunteer has inspired me to dedicate my future career to serving

underprivileged communities around the world. " —Chiwing " " Qu, Yale

University Undergraduate Student, Unite For Sight Volunteer in Chennai, India

" I can honestly say that everything I learned in 3 years of medical school paled

in comparison to the 3 week experience I had in Accra (Ghana) in October 2007 as

part of Unite For Sight. The program provides volunteers with a unique and

hands-on involvement -- being able to help out to the level of your training and

comfort. My experience taught me that Ghanaian people are the friendliest people

I have interacted with anywhere in the world, that ordinary people involved with

Unite For Sight are making extraordinary differences, and that sitting in a

classroom receiving a world-class education cannot match real life experiences

while volunteering. " --Varun Verma, UMDNJ Medical Student, Unite For Sight

Volunteer in Accra, Ghana

" While in Ghana, I worked with an ophthalmologist (Dr. e), two eye

nurses ( Dolo, Kartee Karloweah), an assistant (Bismark Boryor), and a

coordinator (Seth). Working with the Unite for Sight team on these outreaches in

service to these wonderful people of Ghana was the single most rewarding work

I've done in my life. The people of Ghana are some of the friendliest and most

thankful of anyone I have ever met. Overall, the experience has changed the way

I view the world, my own country, and my role in the world forever. The only way

to understand the way 4/5 of the world lives is to go yourself and get involved.

The staff I worked with that are the heart and soul of Unite for Sight in Accra

were some of the brightest and hard working individuals I have ever met. They

are accomplishing feats few ever accomplish in their lives, and I am truly

blessed to have had the opportunity to work with them and now call them my

friends. I look forward to future work with Unite for Sight as an

Ophthalmologist. The task at hand in Ghana, and I'm sure in all of Unite for

Sight's locations throughout the world, is enormous. The more people that get

involved, the more accessible services will be to these wonderful people. Plain

and simple, the more we help, the more people can see the world they live

in! " — Fowler, Medical Student at University of Virginia, Unite For Sight

Volunteer in Accra, Ghana

Hundreds of volunteer narratives, volunteer diaries, as well as videos of alumni

volunteers and partner eye doctors are available on the Unite For Sight website:

http://www.uniteforsight.org/intl_volunteer

Also, Unite For Sight's Fifth Annual International Health Conference is coming

up at Yale on April 12-13, 2008. Keynote addresses by Dr. Sachs, Dr.

Sachs, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, Dr. Allan Rosenfield, and Dr. Blumenthal.

Plus 180 Speakers and 2,000+ conference attendees. Register for the conference

at http://www.uniteforsight.org/conference