Mandatory Chapter Policies and Procedures

Table of Contents

Use of the Unite For Sight Name and Logo

The Unite For Sight name, logo, and materials are protected by copyright and trademark laws worldwide. The use by unapproved groups of the Unite For Sight name, logo, and materials constitutes the infringement of our trademarks and copyrights, which carries the potential for serious legal consequences. Licenses to those important intellectual properties are available only after a group submits the Chapter Charter, and only to chapters that comply with Unite For Sight's legitimate and appropriate requirements.

After a group submits their Chapter Charter, and at the time that Unite For Sight approves a group for affiliation as a chapter, the chapter is granted permission to utilize the Unite For Sight name and logo. The Unite for Sight name and logo may be used on approved educational materials, posters, and flyers. Prior to printing any materials with the Unite For Sight name or logo, the proposed material must be sent to Unite For Sight (volunteers@uniteforsight.org) for approval.

Chapters are not permitted to print new Unite For Sight TShirt designs. All Unite For Sight volunteers worldwide are required to wear the same TShirt (http://www.uniteforsight.org/ordershirt.php)

Unite For Sight's Mission Statement - Use For All Publicity

Unite For Sight® is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that empowers communities worldwide to improve eye health and eliminate preventable blindness. Unite For Sight applies best practices in eye care, public health, volunteerism, and social entrepreneurship to achieve our goal of high quality eye care for all. Unite For Sight's unwavering commitment to creating a real, lasting impact involves three innovative program divisions: chapters at North American universities, locally-led international eye care programs involving Global Impact Fellows, and an annual global health conference. Unite For Sight is the world's leader in social responsible, effective volunteering and also a leader in providing high quality, cost-effective care to the world's poorest people.

Register Your Chapter with Your University

Find out how to register your chapter as an official student organization (every school has different guidelines). Registering may make you eligible for benefits, including room rental privileges and funds for conference travel or campus events. You will also most likely become eligible for university funding, which can fund start-up expenses such as purchasing the vision screening chart, paper, and other materials. You must use university funding to fund your chapter's expenses. All funds raised by your chapter through fundraising events or donations must fund international eye care and therefore must be submitted to Unite For Sight, without exception.

Appoint an Optometrist or Ophthalmologist as Chapter Advisor

All chapters are required to develop a relationship with at least one optometrist or ophthalmologist advisor. The advisor serves as a community advisor for the chapter. The advisor provides guidance and advice to the chapter and also helps to institutionalize the chapter at the university even after current chapter leaders graduate. Advisors are prohibited from providing eye care in the community with Unite For Sight; they serve exclusively to provide guidance and advice to the chapter.

The optometrist/ophthalmologist chapter advisor is required to sign the Chapter Charter and submit a 1-paragraph online review about the chapter once per semester at http://www.uniteforsight.org/chapter/advisor_review.php

We suggest that you contact potential optometrist or ophthalmologist advisors by email since the email usually reaches the eye doctor directly, instead of having your messages routed by phone through a secretary, for example.

Sample Email:

Dear <INSERT DOCTOR'S NAME>

I am writing to you on behalf of a new chapter of Unite For Sight that I am founding at <INSERT YOUR UNIVERSITY NAME>. As a chapter of Unite For Sight, our volunteers will reduce patient barriers to care by emphasizing the importance of regular eye exams by an eye doctor.  Our program activities will also include eye health education programs and visual acuity screenings with a Snellen chart.

We very much hope that you will be interested in serving as our chapter advisor.  Would you be available to assist in this role?  Chapters are required to have an ophthalmologist or optometrist advisor who provides approximately 30-minutes of guidance to the chapter each semester (approximately 1 hour per year).  The advisor meets with the chapter president and officers once per semester to discuss chapter progress, discuss a plan of action, and connect the chapter with any locally available free or low cost eye care resources that could be made known to the medically underserved in community centers.  The advisor does not participate in any chapter activities, nor provides any eye care in the community.  Details about the North America chapter programs can be seen online at www.uniteforsight.org/start-a-chapter

Hold a Minimum of Two Community-Based Events Each Month

Unite For Sight chapters must offer at least two community-based programs per month at a soup kitchen, homeless shelter, library, nursing home, school, or similar community center.  Each program may involve a minimum of 2-3 volunteers.  If 9 volunteers are involved with the chapter, for example, you could hold approximately three programs per month with a separate group of volunteers during each day. Depending on the number of volunteers involved with the chapter, chapters should hold one to two events per week. Learn about vision education programs that you can implement in your community: http://www.uniteforsight.org/start-a-chapter/vision-education

Since eye care is provided in most Canadian provinces for free to those under the age of 18 and over the age of 65, you should focus your programs on these target age populations. Encouraging and motivating patients to seek regular eye care using the available resources will eliminate preventable blindness.

Chapter Policies and Procedures: Professionalism, Quality, and Ethics

Our research, experience, and evaluation has enabled us to develop a highly successful program that ensures that patients receive the highest quality of care.  As a chapter volunteer, you will provide visual acuity screenings and most importantly match those screened with free health coverage programs so that they can receive a complete eye exam by an eye doctor. Unite For Sight programs therefore ensure that uninsured community members receive the same high quality of care that is available to regular privately paying patients.

The majority of the public believes that their eye problems are due to the need for glasses.  However, many vision problems are unrelated to refractive error and glasses.  Only an eye doctor can determine the reason for a person’s visual problems.  If you encounter community members who say that they "just need for glasses to correct their vision problems", it is important to emphasize that their vision problems may or may not be due to the need for eyeglasses. Everyone that you encounter at vision screening and vision education events must be connected with resources to receive a complete eye exam by an eye doctor. If anyone is experiencing visual difficulties, it is especially important that they go to an eye doctor for examination and diagnosis.  For example, blurry vision and visual deterioration can be caused by anything from refractive error to cataracts to glaucoma, among other eye diseases.

Chapters and chapter volunteers are prohibited from providing any eye exams or tests. Program activities must only include education, awareness, and visual acuity screenings using a Snellen chart. Offering other tests would have the great potential to do more harm than good in community settings. There is sometimes a perception that the medically underserved and uninsured will benefit from any medical services, regardless of the lack of experience of the provider. However, this is far from the truth. Free eye care is available in Canada for citizens under the age of 18 and over the age of 65. Chapters should therefore focus their attention on community centers with populations in this age range.

Ophthalmologists, residents, and optometrists are prohibited from participating in Unite For Sight community programs in any capacity, and they are prohibited from providing any cursory exams or diagnostic procedures at any Unite For Sight program. Some ophthalmic equipment is very portable (ophthalmoscopes and Tonopens, for example). However, cursory exams are not diagnostic, nor are Tonopen IOP checks. Community members that you encounter must be connected with the resources to receive a complete dilated eye exam by an ophthalmologist or optometrist in a clinic setting through the national free health coverage programs, or through a free clinic. If a cursory fundus exam were provided by a resident with an ophthalmoscope, for example, the patient would think that an eye doctor examined their eyes, even if they were firmly told that they did not receive a complete eye exam. Therefore, most would choose not go to an eye doctor through the available free health coverage programs since they would feel that they were already examined. (Why should they spend their valuable time going to an eye doctor if they just were examined by an eye doctor at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter?) For someone who has never been to an eye doctor, or has not been to an eye doctor in 10 or 20 years, it is difficult to understand the comprehensive nature and type of equipment involved with complete eye examinations. Complete dilated eye exams can only be provided by eye doctors in a clinic setting, where all equipment is available, which is why it is so vital to match those screened with free health coverage programs so that quality eye care can be provided.

Mandatory Phone Conversations and Online Monthly Updates

Unite For Sight's Chapter Coordinator will call the chapter President every other week to check in about the chapter's activities, hear about your past two weeks of activities and about your upcoming programming, and also answer questions. The phone conversations with the chapter President will be 5-10 minutes in duration.

All chapters are required to submit monthly updates through the online system on the first day of every month. The update should include a list of events during the previous month and additional noteworthy news. We would like to hear about your chapter's activities, and we encourage you to share your ideas and photographs.

Order Unite For Sight TShirts

We encourage all of your chapter volunteers to order Unite For Sight TShirts online at http://www.uniteforsight.org/ordershirt.php It is best for all volunteers to wear these shirts during community events so that community members are immediately aware of your affiliation with Unite For Sight.

Eyeglass Drive Policies

You should collect reading glasses and non-prescription sunglasses. Chapters will place eyeglass donation bins in university libraries, hospitals, and eye doctor offices and publicize the drive through flyers and newspaper press releases. The drive is ongoing, enabling each chapter to collect several hundred eyeglasses per year.

Eyeglass Drive Manual - This manual contains all information and materials for starting an eyeglass drive, including the eyeglass drive poster that you'll place on the eyeglass drive bins.

Funding to ship the eyeglasses must be received from your university's student organization funding source. You cannot use any funds raised by the chapter for eyeglass shipping. Instead, you should ship the eyeglasses using funding only from your university's student organization funding source. If you are not able to obtain funding for shipping expenses, it is best to forgo the eyeglass drive until funds can be received from your university. All funds raised in Unite For Sight's name must be submitted to Unite For Sight to provide eye care for patients living in extreme poverty. No funds can be used for shipping expenses.

Please send your collection of eyeglasses and sunglasses to:

Unite For Sight
Attn: Southern Eye Associates
5350 Poplar #950
Memphis, TN 38119

Important Note: You will be sending your eyeglasses to an ophthalmology office that will bring your glasses to Sierra Leone, West Africa.

Please only send eyeglasses and eyeglass cases that are in good condition; any other messages or materials sent to the address will only reach the Sierra Leone-affiliated eye clinic, and will not reach Unite For Sight's office.

Broken eyeglasses will unfortunately not be useful in our programs. Please send only glasses that are in usable condition.

Ophthalmology, Optometry, and Global Health Educational Activities

In addition to community-based events,we also encourage chapters to develop educational activities for their members and for their university campus. Chapters often recruit speakers to talk about ophthalmology, optometry, and public health. You should make these educational opportunities available to the entire university community, not only your current chapter members. These educational events are also a great opportunity to recruit new volunteers to participate in the Unite For Sight chapter. Those interested in organizing speaker events should review the How To Organize A Speaker Series Event Manual.

For those interesed in ophthalmology and optometry, you can speak with your advisor about providing chapter members with an opportunity to shadow the advisor or other eye doctors in a university department or at an eye doctor's office.

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