About Unite For Sight
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, global health, and social entrepreneurship to achieve our goal of high quality eye care for all. In addition to being a leader in providing cost-effective care to the world's poorest people, our Global Health University develops and nurtures the next generation of global health leaders.
Unite For Sight at a Glance
Organization Founded: 2000
International Programs Founded: 2004
Global Health Conference Founded: 2004
Fellows Trained: 6,600
Medically Underserved Persons Helped By Unite For Sight: 900,000
Sight-Restoring Surgeries Funded: 30,374
Unite For Sight's Programs
- Investments To Fundamentally Change The Sustainable Impact of Local Eye Clinics
- Global Impact Corps: Training The Next Generation of Global Health Leaders
- Community Fellows Program: North America Chapters Reduce Barriers To Care
- GH/Innovate 2010 - Global Health & Innovation Conference
- Global Health University: Education To Change The World
Investments To Fundamentally Change The Sustainable Impact of Local Eye Clinics
- We support eye clinics worldwide by investing human and financial resources in their social ventures to eliminate patient barriers to eye care
- We cultivate and invest in the talent of local ophthalmologist leaders who have the determination and skill to create successful social enterprises that serve the world's poorest people
- We develop and enhance the capacity and effectiveness of eye clinics to provide care to those living in poverty
- The eye care services are comprehensive, including examinations by local eye doctors, diagnosis and care for all treatable conditions, promotion, and prevention. This full range of services is delivered to the population year-round.
- We empower individuals and communities by training patients to be Community Eye Health Workers
- We create employment opportunities for local health workers
- We mobilize eye care professionals in countries throughout the world to work collaboratively, and exchange skills and best practices across continents
Impact: Our innovative programs have provided the highest quality of care to 900,000 of the world's poorest people. All of the eye care is provided by local eye doctors. Unite For Sight’s model has strengthened local health care infrastructure and improved quality of life in communities where access to eye care did not previously exist.
- Examples of Unite For Sight's Success:
- 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. With the support of Unite For Sight, Dr. Wanye now provides close to 2,000 cataract surgeries each year.
- In Accra, Ghana, Unite For Sight's support has enabled Crystal Eye Clinic to more than triple its annual number of surgeries, 86% of which are now provided to patients living in extreme poverty.
- 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 alone, Uma Eye Clinic's ophthalmologists provided 2,114 surgeries.
Global Impact Corps: Training The Next Generation of Global Health Leaders
"Through this organization[Unite For Sight]...I see that it's possible for medical practitioners, public health workers, and students, to come together and to achieve what seems impossible. That working selflessly with sensitivity to cultural difference and to human dignity, right thinking individuals can together change the way that the whole world works...And to provide a model for all those idealistic young people...who want to do their part to make this world a better place."--Jane Edwards, Associate Dean for International Affairs, Yale University, at the 2008 Unite For Sight Conference
- We provide Global Impact Fellows - the next generation of global health leaders - with the opportunity, training, and tools to drive change.
- Global Impact Fellows provide support and assistance to local eye care professionals in developing countries, and the fellows are locally led and managed by local eye doctors.
- We fundamentally change the role of volunteers and their long-term training, engagement, and impact.
- Global Impact Fellows gain hands-on, structured training in global health.
- We instill in our Global Impact Fellows a thorough understanding of best practices in volunteerism, global health, and international development.
- We cultivate creative collaboration between eye clinics, volunteers, and universities from five continents
- Global Impact Fellows are encouraged to participate in Entrepreneurial Volunteering and the Global Impact Lab, optional programs for volunteers interested in social entrepreneurship and global health research.
Impact: We have engaged, inspired, and trained 1,300 fellows to become new leaders in global health while participating in community-based eye health services
Community Fellows Program: North America Chapters Reduce Barriers To Care
- Fellows are trained and empowered to reduce patient barriers to care by linking community members with free health coverage programs so that they can receive a complete eye exam by an eye doctor. The free health coverage programs are offered through high quality professional organizations such as the American Academy of Ophthalmology and American Optometric Association.
- We provide Community Fellows with hands-on training in evidence-based public health programming.
Impact: Annually, more than 1,000 fellows in university chapters throughout North America serve as advocates for community eye health.
GH/Innovate 2010 - Global Health & Innovation Conference
- The conference provides tools to identify global problems, engage in social entrepreneurship, and create change and real solutions
- We connect individuals, organizations, universities, the public, and communities, to collaborate on sustainable solutions
- The conference inspires leadership, talent, and ideas
- We encourage learning and innovation by providing a forum to share information and best practices across all disciplines of global health, social entrepreneurship, and international development
Impact: More than 2,200 participants from 50 states and from 55 countries annually gain skills and tools to create change and engage in social entrepreneurship.
Global Health University: Excellence in Global Health Education
- Comprehensive training in best practices promotes the maximum beneficial impact of global health endeavors
- Fellowship and internship opportunities
- Global health & social entrepreneurship idea incubator workshops
- Free and available to the public, eleven online training courses help to effect widespread change in global health
Impact: Annually, more than 1,400 Unite For Sight Fellows are required to complete the Global Health University courses, which instills in them best practices in global health and social entrepreneurship. Thousands more actively use the important training materials.