Global Health Delivery Programs At A Glance

Quality patient care.

By partnering with local eye clinics, our programs provide consistent, quality, and sustainable health care. All eye care services are comprehensive, including examinations by local eye doctors, diagnosis and care for all treatable conditions, education, and prevention. This full range of services is delivered to the population year-round. Our outreach efforts extend to individuals in the surrounding villages, in some cases including villages seven or more hours from the clinic. These patients are provided with follow up care by our outreach teams regularly throughout the year. We eliminate patient barriers to care by fully funding surgeries, bringing eye care services to the patients, providing transportation to the eye clinic for surgery as needed, and educating communities about blindness elimination. The eye care programs are locally led and managed by partner eye clinics. Those receiving care through Unite For Sight's programs are living in poverty and do not have other avenues for receiving care. All eye care and surgeries are provided by local eye doctors. We promote high quality surgery with good visual outcomes. Unite For Sight's partner ophthalmologists are highly skilled and trained to provide the most advanced type of cataract surgery (SICS and Phaco). Patients receive postoperative follow-up care one month after surgery by local eye doctors, and postoperative outcomes and quality of care is monitored.

We support eye clinics by investing human and financial resources in their social ventures to eliminate patient barriers to eye care.

We develop and enhance the quality and productivity of our partner eye clinics to provide care to those living in poverty. We provide continuing professional development opportunities for our partner ophthalmologists and ophthalmic nurses. We mobilize eye care professionals throughout the world to work collaboratively, and we encourage the donation of quality equipment to our partner eye clinics. We engage, inspire, and train non-eye care professionals to participate as Global Impact Fellows to support and assist eye clinics globally. These volunteers receive training in eye health, public health, and international development. Additionally, while immersed in effective Unite For Sight programs, they gain skills to become new leaders in global health. We fund expenses for patients to receive eye care who are living in extreme poverty.

We provide professional development opportunities for local eye care professionals.

Visiting ophthalmologist and optometrist volunteers provide one-on-one mentoring and training for local eye care professionals. We provide sponsorship for ophthalmic staff at partner eye clinics to pursue training courses and advanced degrees.

We promote sustainable development in eye care.

Our partner eye clinics have a sustainable business model, and do not rely on Unite For Sight's support to operate or be locally competitive. We help existing eye clinics develop outreach infrastructure so that care can be provided to patients living in extreme poverty. Meanwhile, the clinic's private business continues as an enterprise independent of the Unite For Sight-supported outreach programs. This strong base of independence and sustainability comes from good business practices, which is why Unite For Sight partners exclusively with existing eye clinics that also provide care to regular paying patients.

We create local jobs and empower families and communities.

We provide grants to local eye clinics to hire outreach staff, comprised of local ophthalmic nurses, optometrists, coordinators, and outreach van drivers. We fund local eye clinics to train and employ Community Eye Health Workers who work daily in their local villages to eliminate patient barriers to eye care. Restoring a person's sight creates job opportunities. Blindness in the developing world has a significant effect on families, employment, income, and on the education of children within the family. Those who are blind are usually 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.

We create a network for an exchange of knowledge.

We develop communication channels between eye clinic partners to enable the exchange of proven effective practices, experiences, and lessons learned between clinics located on three continents. Most of the eye clinic partners also attend Unite For Sight's Global Health & Innovation Conference, which further encourages learning and innovation by sharing information and best practices with 2,200 conference participants across all disciplines of global health and international development.

We are transparent and accountable.

We run a highly effective and efficient organization, and we ensure that 100% of all donations go directly to providing eye care for patients living in extreme poverty in the developing world. The cost of a sight-restoring cataract surgery ranges from $10-$100, depending on the country location and the local availability and nature of surgical supplies.