Yale Bulletin and Calendar

March 24, 2006|Volume 34, Number 23

Range of global health issues will be explored in third annual Unite for Sight conference

Physicians, nurses, public health professionals, activists, Peace Corps volunteers and student leaders who are engaged in global health issues will be among more than 800 people who will gather on campus April 1 and 2 for the third annual International Health and Development Conference sponsored by Unite for Sight, a non-profit organization founded by a Yale alumnus while she was an undergraduate at Yale.

The conference, titled "Empowering Communities to Bridge Health Divides," will examine a range of global health concerns, including eye care and the treatment of eye diseases, health care needs in refugee camps, pediatric AIDS, child health and the orphan crisis in Rwanda, women's health and infectious diseases, among others. Global and community health strategies will be discussed, and there will be opportunities for informal networking and discussion. All events will take place in Linsly-Chittenden Hall (LC), 63 High St.

In addition, the event will feature poster presentations, exhibits and the screening of several films that document various international health programs and projects.

The conference begins on Saturday at 8 a.m. in Rm. 102 LC with welcoming remarks by Jennifer Staple '03, who founded Unite for Sight as a Yale sophomore and is its president and chief executive officer (CEO). The organization empowers communities worldwide to improve eye health and eliminate preventable blindness. Volunteer teams work with partner eye clinics in developing countries to provide eye care and eye health education programs. In addition, vision and education programs are implemented worldwide by volunteers working in 90 Unite for Sight chapters established at universities and in communities.

Dr. Al Sommer, dean emeritus of the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, will deliver the keynote address at 8:30 a.m. Saturday on the topic "Environment, Behavior and Health: Societies Matter." His talk will also take place in Rm. 102 LC.

Individual sessions will take place throughout the remainder of the day, and the film "An Eye Opener in Chennai, India -- A Unite for Sight Film" will be repeated every 30 minutes in Rm. 208 LC.

Sunday's session will begin at 9 a.m. in Rm. 101 LC. "Visioning Tibet -- A Film" and "An Eye Opener in Chennai, India" will be shown during both morning and afternoon sessions. The afternoon session will include a performance by Clowns Without Borders, a group that provides laughter and emotional relief to children in areas of crises around the world.

Speakers at the Unite for Sight conference include Dr. Thomas J. Beggins, the former medical director and surgeon at Lusaka Eye Hospital in Zambia; Dr. Harry S. Brown, founder, president and CEO of Surgical Eye Expeditions; Dr. James Clarke of the Crystal Eye Clinic in Ghana; Valda Ford, director of community and multicultural affairs at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Unite for Sight's director of refugee initiatives; Dr. Paula Gutlove, deputy director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies; Rosie Janiszewski, deputy director of the Office of Communication and Health Education and public liaison for the National Eye Institute; Dr. Jacob Kumaresan, president of the International Trachoma Initiative; Jamie McLaren Lachman, director of Project Njabuo of Clowns Without Borders; Charles MacCormack, president and CEO of Save the Children; Kovin Naidoo, director of the International Centre for Eyecare Education in Africa; Dr. Louis Pizzarello, secretary-general of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness; Dr. Phillip Plunk, founder of Project Salud y Paz in Guatemala; Joshua Silver, professor of physics at Oxford University and the founder of Adaptive Eyecare Limited; and Jeffrey S. Watson, director of overseas operations, Christian Blind Mission International -- USA.

Yale participants include faculty members Dr. Richard Bucala, Nora Gorce, Dr. Bruce Shields and Derek Yach. Yale-student participants are Beth Dickinson '07, who volunteered with Unite for Sight in Sierra Leone, Africa; and Dai Ellis, a law school student who co-directs Orphans of Rwanda and is project manager at the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative.

There is a registration fee for the conference. To register, and for a complete conference schedule, visit www.uniteforsight.org/2006_annual_conference.php.

There are now over 4,000 volunteers working through Unite for Sight chapters at universities, medical schools, corporations and high school worldwide. They deliver eye care to hundreds of thousands of people. Volunteers serve as interns at eye clinics, participating with eye doctors on community-based screening programs. The clinics' eye doctors diagnose and treat eye disease in the field, and patients needing surgery are brought to the eye clinic. Unite for Sight funds the surgeries for those patients unable to afford eye care. The organization's goal for 2006 is to sponsor at least 4,000 sight-restoring cataract surgeries.

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Correction