[Telecentres] Volunteer in Africa and Asia

Wed Jan 2 19:48:43 GMT 2008

Unite For Sight Volunteer Abroad Opportunities: As Featured Weekly On CNN
Currently accepting applications for January 2008 through January 2009.  Rolling application deadline - the first qualified applicants are accepted.  Apply today!

Volunteer Abroad in Summer, Fall, Winter, or Spring: http://www.uniteforsight.org/intl_volunteer <http://www.uniteforsight.org/intl_volunteer>

Save Eyes and Lives.  Every Eye, A Life.
Those who are blind in Africa have a four times higher mortality rate
60-80% of children who become blind die within 1-2 years
80% of blindness is curable or preventable

How Do I Apply?  The application as well as complete details about Unite For Sight's international opportunities are available at http://www.uniteforsight.org/intl_volunteer/ <http://www.uniteforsight.org/intl_volunteer>

What is Unite For Sight's Mission? Unite For Sight is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that empowers communities worldwide to improve eye health and eliminate preventable blindness. 

Unite For Sight's work to prevent blindness and restore sight is featured weekly on CNN INTERNATIONAL from September 2007-August 2008

Who Is Eligible to Participate?: The Unite For Sight internship is open to individuals 18 years and older, and there is no upper age limit. Volunteers range from undergraduate students to medical students, public health students and professionals, nurses, physician's assistants, teachers and educators, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, doctors, opticians, optometrists and ophthalmologists.

What Do Volunteers Do?: Volunteers receive hands-on clinical experience while assisting doctors in remote, rural villages.  Volunteers learn about international health and eye care, learn clinical skills while working with patients and doctors, and, in one program location, have an opportunity to perform cataract surgery on a goat's eye.

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.  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.  Volunteers immediately see the joy on patients' faces when their sight is restored after years of blindness.  These memories last a lifetime.

While helping the community, volunteers are in a position to witness and draw their own conclusions about the failures and inequities of global health systems. It broadens their view of what works, and what role they can have to insure a health system that works for everyone and that leaves no person blind in the future.

What Do Volunteers Say?:

"During my volunteering experience, I realized that Unite for Sight's service is a campaign for the salvation of humanity that allows the light of compassion to shine through each of us. I believe it is this display of altruism and commitment that makes the organization's service so virtuous and treasured by both volunteers and patients. After all, making a difference in the world is not so difficult if only one would care enough to sacrifice a part of oneself in order to change the world for the better. My experience as a Unite for Sight volunteer has inspired me to dedicate my future career to serving underprivileged communities around the world."—Chiwing "Jessica" Qu, Yale University Student, Unite For Sight Volunteer in India 2007

"Without Unite for Sight, I cannot imagine how I could possibly have seen and learned so much as an undergraduate about medicine, other cultures, and my own desire and ability to make a difference in others' lives."--Charlotte Hogan, Georgetown University Student, Unite For Sight Volunteer in India 2006 and Ghana 2005

"I can honestly say that everything I learned in 3 years of medical school paled in comparison to the 3 week experience I had in Accra (Ghana) in October 2007 as part of Unite For Sight.  The program provides volunteers with a unique and hands-on involvement -- being able to help out to the level of your training and comfort. My experience taught me that Ghanaian people are the friendliest people I have interacted with anywhere in the world, that ordinary people involved with Unite For Sight are making extraordinary differences, and that sitting in a classroom receiving a world-class education cannot match real life experiences while volunteering."--Varun Verma, UMDNJ Medical Student, Unite For Sight Volunteer in Accra, Ghana

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