How Unite For Sight Works
United States Staff
Unite For Sight’s headquarters are located in New Haven, Connecticut, and our staff coordinates our North America programs, our international programs, and our annual Global Health & Innovation Conference. We have trained more than 6,300 fellows who work in their local communities and abroad with local eye clinics to provide eye health programs for those without previous access.
Chapters: All volunteers participating with a chapter of Unite For Sight are Community Fellows, and every Community Fellow is required to complete training prior to paticipating in any capacity with a chapter of Unite For Sight. Unite For Sight has 90 chapters at universities throughout North America, and the chapters have extensive interaction with our staff. Each chapter president is required to have a biweekly phone conversation with our Chapter Coordinator, submit online monthly updates, and respond promptly to communication from Unite For Sight. Additionally, our staff has worked extensively to develop Community Impact Training, which includes comprehensive training and materials to prepare each Community Fellow for their high impact chapter volunteering in their local community.
Global Impact Corps (http://www.uniteforsight.org/volunteer-abroad): Unite For Sight has more than 300 Global Impact Fellows who volunteer abroad each year. Global Impact Fellows work closely with our U.S.-based staff in preparation for their trip, including with a Volunteer Counselor. Our staff has worked extensively with each local eye clinic to develop Global Impact Training, which includes comprehensive training and materials to prepare each volunteer for their participation at the eye clinic abroad. Unite For Sight’s staff in the U.S. has extensive interaction with each local ophthalmologist, which includes daily communication regarding volunteer and program management. The role of the U.S. staff is to assist and support our partner local ophthalmologists and local eye clinics to provide eye care to 200,000 patients each year.
Global Health & Innovation Conference (http://www.uniteforsight.org/conference): Unite For Sight holds an annual conference each April, which convenes more than 2,200 participants from all 50 states and from more than 55 countries. The conference is an innovative, high-impact idea incubator that challenges students, professionals, educators, doctors, scientists, lawyers, universities, corporations, nonprofits, and others, to develop innovative solutions to achieve global goals.
North America Chapter Overview
Unite For Sight's chapter Community Fellows are trained to reduce barriers to care by serving as advocates for community members. Community Fellows educate community members about the importance of receiving regular eye exams to prevent blindness. They connect community members with resources so that they can receive a complete eye exam through professional organizations such as American Academy of Ophthalmology (EyeCare America) and American Optometric Association (VisionUSA). By connecting community members with available free care by eye care professionals, the Community Fellows are helping community members to eliminate preventable blindness.
In addition to community-based screening and education events, Unite For Sight provides global health and development training to its Community Fellows. They learn about, understand, and advocate for Unite For Sight's mission to apply best practices in public health and volunteerism in our goal of high quality eye care for all. The chapters fundraise to provide sight-restoring eye care in developing countries. 100% of the funds raised provide sight-restoring surgeries for patients living in extreme poverty. Unite For Sight is responsible for, must receive, and must document all funds raised by its chapters. 100% of all funds raised by each chapter must be submitted to Unite For Sight within 30 days.
International Program Overview (Ghana, Honduras, and India)
Unite For Sight supports eye clinics worldwide by investing human and financial resources in their social ventures to eliminate patient barriers to eye care. Our high-impact programs are sustainable, apply best practice principles in global health and eye care, and achieve effective change. In order to create effective, long-term change, eye care programs must be developed at the grass-roots level by local ophthalmologists who know their local eye care needs. Unite For Sight’s role is to support local ophthalmologists in their social ventures to create effective change. The international programs are developed by the local ophthalmologists, who lead on a daily basis their own ophthalmic staff, local community members, and the visiting Unite For Sight Global Impact Fellows.
The outreach programs are comprised of the local eye clinic’s staff and Unite For Sight volunteers who travel daily as a team into remote villages, slums, and refugee camps, to provide on-site eye care. Patients requiring surgery are transported to the eye clinic and then returned to their home village after their surgery.
Unite For Sight sponsors the eye care for patients identified through outreach programs. Unite For Sight provides a grant to each partner eye clinic to support the surgery costs for patients, medication costs, and other necessary expenses to operate the outreach programs. The average hard cost of surgery across all of Unite For Sight's partner eye clinics is $50, with a range of $10-$100. The cost of surgery depends on a variety of issues, including the type of surgery provided (i.e. SICS or Phaco) and the country where the surgery is provided. For example, surgery expenses are lower in India than in Ghana since all of the surgical supplies are manufactured locally in India. In contrast, eye clinics in Ghana need to receive their surgical supplies from locations such as India, and the shipping and customs charges significantly increase the surgical expense. Unite For Sight pays for the hard cost for all surgeries, which means that we fully sponsor all costs involved with providing a surgery to a patient. As part of the grant agreement, each eye clinic is required to provide Unite For Sight with a complete line-by-line breakdown of their surgery costs.
Unite For Sight's role is to support and assist the clinic's outreach initiatives to provide care for patients living in poverty. Separate from the outreach patients who have obvious barriers to care, each eye clinic also has regular private, paying patients who bring themselves to the eye clinic for care. These patients are generally not living in poverty in villages, and their ability to independently seek care at the clinic indicates that they do not have significant financial, transportation, or awareness/education barriers. These regular patients at the eye clinic are unaffiliated with Unite For Sight. They therefore pay the eye clinic's regular surgery charge, which is higher than the hard costs of surgery. This is important because it generates necessary profit for the clinic, enabling it to be self-sustaining without relying on Unite For Sight for their day-to-day operations.
Unite For Sight sponsors the eye care programs well in excess of the funds raised by the volunteers. By raising funds, volunteers enable Unite For Sight to sponsor an even greater number of surgeries and eye care and therefore provide surgery to many more patients who are in dire need.
Volunteers: All volunteers participating in Unite For Sight's international programs are Global Impact Fellows. Global Impact Fellows first apply to participate through an online application (http://www.uniteforsight.org/volunteer-abroad), and the application includes short essays and two letters of recommendation. If an applicant is accepted, the Global Impact Fellow completes pre-departure training and requirements in preparation for their participation in Ghana, Honduras, and India. The Global Impact Fellow application and training are independent of the application and training completed by chapter Community Fellows who participate in North America. Community Fellows who would like to volunteer abroad as Global Impact Fellows must complete the separate application. Likewise, Global Impact Fellows who would like to volunteer with a chapter are required to complete the Community Fellow application and training.