Unite For Sight: High Impact Through Social Innovation

"Unite For Sight has ballooned, and last year it provided eye care to 200,000 people...Today the most remarkable young people are the social entrepreneurs, those who see a problem in society and roll up their sleeves to address it in new ways. Bill Drayton, the chief executive of an organization called Ashoka that supports social entrepreneurs, likes to say that such people neither hand out fish nor teach people to fish; their aim is to revolutionize the fishing industry. If that sounds insanely ambitious, it is." -- Nicholas D. Kristof, "The Age of Ambition," The New York Times, January 27, 2008

Our Innovative Model

Unite For Sight's innovative model has enabled the exponential expansion and success of the organization. While creating a committed vanguard of thousands of volunteers worldwide, Unite For Sight challenges students, professionals, educators, and eye doctors, to rethink what it means to eliminate preventable blindness through local capacity building.

• Harnesses idealism with practicality and infrastructure
• Engages thousands of non-eye care professionals in direct eye care services that are eliminating blindness worldwide
• Mobilizes eye care professionals in countries throughout the world to "Unite For Sight", work collaboratively, and exchange skills and best practices across continents
• Empowers patients and communities to be engaged in preventing and eliminating blindness
• Connects organizations, eye clinics, universities, the public, and communities, to develop sustainable programs that create permanent change
• Cultivates leadership, talent, and ideas among its eye clinic partners and among its volunteers
• Encourages learning and innovation by organizing an annual global conference for 2,500 participants to share information and best practices across all disciplines of global health and international development

Providing Access To Eye Care

The communities where we work did not previously have access to eye care due to many barriers. Unite For Sight's model has enabled local eye clinics to create real change and a sustainable impact for those living in extreme poverty.

• In Tamale, Ghana, ophthalmologist Dr. Wanye is the only eye doctor for 2 million people in the entire region. Prior to working with Unite For Sight, Dr. Wanye often went months without providing a single cataract surgery because the community members could not afford the cost of surgery. Unite For Sight volunteers now work with him to assist with screening outreach programs, and Unite For Sight funds the cataract surgeries for the patients so that no one will remain blind due to lack of funds. In two years, with the support of Unite For Sight, Dr. Wanye has provided 2,544 surgeries to patients living in extreme poverty.
• In Accra, Ghana, Unite For Sight's support has enabled Crystal Eye Clinic to more than double its annual number of surgeries. During the past two years, Unite For Sight has sponsored 2,460 surgeries provided by Crystal Eye Clinic for patients living in extreme poverty. The single ophthalmologist at Crystal Eye Clinic now provides nearly 2,000 surgeries annually, and 86% of the patients are those screened in Unite For Sight outreach programs in rural villages and at a refugee camp.
• In Chennai, India, Uma Eye Clinic has more than quadrupled its capacity to provide surgeries to poor patients from rural villages. During the past two years, Uma Eye Clinic's ophthalmologists provided 2,114 surgeries to patients from rural villages.