Unite For Sight® (www.uniteforsight.org) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that empowers communities worldwide to improve eye health and eliminate preventable blindness. Local and visiting volunteers work with partner eye clinics to provide eye care in communities without previous access, with the goal of creating eye disease-free communities. Additionally, vision screening and education programs are implemented worldwide by volunteers working in ninety chapters established at universities in North America, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.The goal of Unite For Sight and its partner eye clinics and communities is to create eye disease-free communities. Unite For Sight’s volunteers (local and visiting) work with partner eye clinics to provide eye care in communities without previous access. Visiting volunteers from North America range from undergraduate and medical students, educators, nurses, and public health professionals to optometrists and ophthalmologists. The eye clinic’s eye doctors and Unite For Sight volunteers jointly provide community-based screening programs in rural villages. The clinic’s eye doctors diagnose and treat eye disease in the field, and surgical patients are brought to the eye clinic for surgery. Patients receive free surgery funded by Unite For Sight so that no patient remains blind due to lack of funds. Unite For Sight's ImpactServices For More Than 400,000 People Worldwide More Than 6,000 Surgeries Provided Thus FarMore than 6,000 Sight-Restoring Surgeries Anticipated in 2007 4,000 People Involved and Making A Difference Unite For Sight's Jennifer Staple Awarded BRICK Award, "The Oscars of Youth Service Awards,": http://uniteforsight.org/news/brickawards.phpGhana Online Film: Unite For Sight at Buduburam Refugee Camp: http://uniteforsight.org/refugeecampfilm.phpIndia Online Film: Unite For Sight's Eye Opener in India: http://uniteforsight.org/chennaifilm.phpUnite For Sight's Partner Ophthalmologists Speak Online: http://health.scribemedia.org/2007/01/30/unite-for-sight-worldwide/ What Several of Unite For Sight's Partner Eye Clinics Say: "Unite For Sight has touched the lives of so many people in Ghana and reduced the suffering of mankind. Many people now see Unite For Sight as a symbol of hope. The question I have always asked myself is 'what would have happened to all these people who have benefited from Unite For Sight programs had the organization not come to their aid?' It is likely that many would have perished in their agony." --Dr. James Afful Clarke, Ophthalmologist/Medical Director, Crystal Eye Clinic, Ghana"Visits of Unite For Sight volunteers help us enormously. They assist us in eye camps when we do surgeries, help us in out reach clinics screening patients for eye diseases and children for refractive error. They help us check vision and distribute glasses. Each volunteer also gives a presentation to the local ophthalmologist on global community ophthalmology at our eye clinics, which is very informative for all. As each day passes, my faith and belief becomes stronger in the fact that our desire to serve the poor patients and their desire to see wouldn’t have been possible without the assistance of Unite For Sight. --Dr. Ajit Sinha, Director, A.B. Eye Institute; President, All India Ophthalmological Society"With the help of Unite For Sight and its Volunteers we are able to improve in the number of free cataract surgeries. Prior to our association with Unite For Sight we were doing around 10-30 free cataract surgeries each month. With the help of Unite For Sight we were able to improve our surgical statistics three to four folds and our free surgical volume increased to around 100 each month. Every dollar of donation given to Unite For Sight is reaching to the deepest corners of the world and impacting changes in lives of people by giving them the gift of vision."--Dr. T. Senthil, Ophthalmologist, Uma Eye Clinic and Vision Foundation, Chennai, India"I must say that Unite for Sight volunteers have come to give hope to the people of Tamale and Northern Region, and all of us appreciate the wonderful work these volunteers are doing for these poor and vulnerable people who otherwise would not have access to quality eye care services." --Dr. Seth Wanye, Eye Clinic of Tamale Teaching Hospital, Ghana"I have no word to express our gratitude for your hard work and untiring commitment towards the eye care work world wide and putting optimum effort to recruit all good volunteers for deployment. As we have been working with partnership by deploying volunteers to our Kalinga Eye Hospital and NYSASDRI based in Orissa, India, it gives me immense pleasure for such worth while partnership for restoring vision of thousands of eye sight from the remote and rural villages. Your support for conducting cataract surgery for poor patients empowered them to live independently and earn their own bread."--Sarangadhar Samal, Director, NYSASDRI, Kalinga Eye Hospital, Orissa, India
