Unite For Sight Global Impact Corps

Lead The Change: Engage and Mobilize Your Campus or Community To Make A Global Impact

If you would like to be a Global Impact Corps volunteer, complete the online application or contact volunteers@uniteforsight.org

Our staff works closely with the leader of each Global Impact Corps to establish effective, high-impact programs.

Global Problem Solving

Unite For Sight's innovative model motivates and encourages Global Impact Corps volunteers to be proactive and entrepreneurial, which enables them to make real, lasting change from their home campus or community. The diverse talents, creativity, and entrepreneurial spirit of Unite For Sight Global Impact Corps volunteers help to hone new approaches to the urgent preventable and curable eye problems that afflict more than 36 million people worldwide.

Global Impact Corps volunteers are part of the solution to eliminating preventable blindness: CNN Feature: Dr. Jeffrey Sachs Speaks About High Impact Volunteering (Run Time: 2 Minutes)

Unite For Sight provides global health and development training to volunteers of its Global Impact Corps. The volunteers use professionally-designed educational and fundraising materials to mobilize individuals and communities to eliminate preventable blindness.

Raise funds to provide sight-restoring surgeries for patients living in extreme poverty
Receive global health and development training
Educate your student body or community about international eye care needs
Plan and host Unite For Sight events

Impact of Global Impact Corps

Those involved with the Global Impact Corps not only help to restore vision, but the volunteers also help to empower patients and their families. Blindness in the developing world has a significant effect on families, employment, income, and on the education of children within the family. Social stigma related to blind patients is commonplace in many communities in the developing world. Those who are blind are oftentimes considered to be a burden to the family because they are not able to contribute to a family's income. Additionally, instead of attending school, children within a family are frequently assigned to the role of the caregiver of blind adults.
In addition to the social consequences of blindness, there are significant mortality rates as well.

Those who are blind in Africa have a four times higher mortality rate
60-80% of children who become blind die within 1-2 years
80% of blindness is curable or preventable

"Being blind means that your liberty is ceased; you live on Earth, but in a different world not part of Earth. Now, the family can come to me with their problems for me to give advice, but when I was blind, one could never remember that I was important to the family. I want to give my thanks and appreciation to all those who are working with Unite For Sight that made me important again."- Buduburam Refugee Camp Unite For Sight Patient Whose Sight Was Restored

Who can participate?

We welcome anyone to volunteer for the Unite For Sight Global Impact Corps.

High Schools
- Classroom teachers and their students
- Student organizations
- Individual students
Universities
- College student organizations (i.e. prehealth clubs, preoptometry societies, sororities, fraternities, etc)
- Graduate student organizations
- Individual students (undergraduates, public health, optometry, medical, and other)
Communities
- Community organizations
- Individual community members

Training and Requirements

Unite For Sight requires Global Impact Corps volunteers to educate themselves through online materials and training so that they are fully engaged and able to effectively mobilize their community.

Global Health and Development Training

Global Health and Development Training: Global Impact Corps volunteers receive comprehensive training about innovation and best practice solutions in global health and international development. They complete the Unite For Sight Online Global Health Course and view videos about international eye care.

Eye Health Training: Volunteers begin by completing an Online Eye Health Course to learn standardized knowledge about eye disease, eye anatomy, and eye health.

Participation and Requirements

Education and Advocacy: The impact of eye disease is often overlooked, as described in the 2-minute CNN Feature: The Impact of Eye Disease Is Often Overlooked. The Global Impact Corps is a united effort to raise awareness about global eye care needs through creative, volunteer-driven endeavors.

Global Impact Corps volunteers are activists and agents of social change. They mobilize and engage individuals to participate in Unite For Sight's worldwide movement to eliminate preventable blindness. They educate and inspire local school children about global eye care needs, mobilize campus communities to participate in Unite For Sight's high impact solutions, and give presentations at local community events about global health and international eye care needs.

Fundraising: Unite For Sight Global Impact Corps volunteers fundraise a minimum of $1,000 per year. To help with fundraising efforts, Unite For Sight creates a personal donation fundraising page for all of its volunteers. Unite For Sight's volunteers are very successful with their fundraising initiatives, and it requires very little of a volunteer's time since they only need to email their fundraising website link to friends and family. As their friends and family submit donations, Unite For Sight automatically records the donations and sends an email to the volunteer as each donation arrives. All donors also receive a receipt for tax purposes, and the donations are tax-deductible to the full extent provided by U.S. law.

Click To View Examples of Volunteer Fundraising Pages