Unite For Sight Teams With RESPECT To Improve Eye Health
Unite For Sight is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that empowers communities worldwide to improve eye health and eliminate preventable blindness. Founded by Jennifer Staple while a sophomore college student at Yale University in September 2000, the organization now includes more than 4,000 volunteers working in ninety chapters established at universities, medical schools, corporations, high schools, and in communities throughout the world. Additionally, Volunteer Teams are sent to 25 countries to provide eye care and eye health education programs to medically underserved communities.
Unite For Sight began its USAID-funded Refugee Camp Program at Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana on December 28, 2004. The volunteer team is distributing eyeglasses and sunglasses, implementing eye health education programs, and providing cataract surgeries and diagnosis and treatment for all people with eye diseases. After the successful coordination of this program, Unite For Sight sought to implement similar programs in other refugee camps throughout the world and is pleased to partner with RESPECT International.
Thus far, Unite For Sight has coordinated programs with RESPECT in Thailand, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Uganda. During March, a Unite For Sight Volunteer Team will teach refugees at the AEIOU Program of Chiang Mai University about eye health. The AEIOU Program caters to Burmese refugees, IDP (Internally Displaced Persons), and legal migrant workers who have run away from their native places. Once the semester is complete, all of the students go back to their refugee camp, where they will establish a chapter of Unite For Sight to educate their community about eye health and ways to prevent eye disease.
Beginning in June, a Unite For Sight Volunteer Team will work at a refugee camp in the Moyamba District of Sierra Leone to prescribe eyeglasses, screen for eye disease and coordinate diagnosis and treatment by doctors, and also educate the community about eye health. This program is coordinated in cooperation with the RESPECT International NGO called Peace Pals Network. A similar program is being planned in Tanzania with RESPECT Tanzania.
Coordinated by Tom Fred Obonyo, RESPECT ACDA in Northern Uganda is establishing a chapter of Unite For Sight to implement eye health education programs for the community. The chapter's volunteers will begin by completing Unite For Sight's Online Eye Health Course (www.uniteforsight.org/course), which is available on a CD-ROM. After successfully completing the final examination, the volunteers will become Unite For Sight Eye Health Educators and will then be ready to educate their community about eye health and ways to prevent blindness. Phase II of the program will include training for the volunteers to screen for operable cataract, followed by sight-restoring cataract surgeries with an eye clinic in the region.
Ms. Jennifer Staple, the Founder, President, and CEO of Unite For Sight, thanked RESPECT International for facilitating these meaningful programs in four countries. She added that "it is an honor and privilege to work with RESPECT, and we look forward to working with other RESPECT affiliates to provide eye care to refugees throughout the world."