Invite A Unite For Sight Leader To Speak About Global Health

Unite For Sight’s speakers have an unparalleled ability to inspire and motivate audiences to make an impact in the world.  Unite For Sight’s expert speakers give presentations at high schools, universities, conferences, leadership institutes, and at businesses. Presentation topics range from global health, international development, and social entrepreneurship, to global health education, training volunteers, and eye care. 

• Jennifer Staple, Founder, President & CEO of Unite For Sight (Availability: Year-Round)
• Dr. Thomas Baah, Ghanaian Ophthalmologist (Availability: Select Weeks in November and April of Each Year)
• Dr. James Clarke, Ghanaian Ophthalmologist, Unite For Sight Medical Advisory Board (Availability: Select Weeks in November and April of Each Year)
• Margaret Duah-Mensah, Ghanaian Ophthalmic Nurse (Availability: Select Weeks in April of Each Year)
• Dr. Seth Wanye, Ghanaian Ophthalmologist, Unite For Sight Medical Advisory (Availability: Select Weeks in November and April of Each Year)

How To Invite A Speaker

If you are interested in inviting one of Unite For Sight’s speakers, please contact UFS@uniteforsight.org with the following details:

• Name of School/Organization/Company
• Location/Meeting Site
• Website (if applicable)
• Date and Time of Presentation
• Type of Event
• Audience Size

Unite For Sight requires that the inviting school/organization/company pay for travel expenses within North America, accommodations, and meals.  A donation is also required to support Unite For Sight’s international eye care programs.

Speaker Biographies

Jennifer Staple

Founder, President & CEO of Unite For Sight
Availability: Year-Round
Topics: Social Entrepreneurship, Eye Care, Global Health, International Development, Engaging Young People To Make A Difference, Impactful Nonprofit Leadership

Biography: Jennifer Staple founded Unite For Sight in her dorm room while a sophomore at Yale University in fall 2000. During the previous summer, Jennifer worked as a clinical ophthalmology research associate. While interacting with low-income patients, she learned about eye diseases that could have been prevented by early medical intervention. Their poignant stories made her recognize the need for community programs to promote eye health, motivating her to found Unite For Sight.

A visionary leader and social entrepreneur, Jennifer Staple was featured in Nicholas D. Kristof's "The Age of Ambition" article in The New York Times on January 27, 2008. She has also been featured weekly on CNN International since September 2007. Under Jennifer's leadership and with her focus on entrepreneurial innovation, the organization has grown from a community-based Yale student organization in New Haven, Connecticut, to a global nonprofit organization. She has developed a highly successful volunteer training program, created 100 chapters throughout North America, developed international programs that provide sight-restoring eye care to more than 200,000 people annually in Africa and Asia, and she coordinates an annual global health conference that convenes more than 2,200 participants from 60 countries. Since 2004, more than 4,500 volunteers have been trained to "Unite For Sight" and provide eye care services to more than 600,000 people worldwide. More than 80,000 volunteer hours of direct eye care service are contributed each year.

A cum laude graduate of Yale University, Jennifer frequently speaks about social entrepreneurship, eye care, global health, and international development. Her most recent audiences have included students at Harvard School of Public Health, Yale Law School, Yale College, Stanford University, York University, and ophthalmologists at the American Academy of Ophthalmology's Women in Ophthalmology Leadership Institute.

In 2007, Jennifer was awarded a BRICK Award, which honors and funds change-makers age 25 and under who identify problems and do something to change the world. CNN dubbed the BRICK Awards "the Oscars of youth service awards." She has also been featured in the book Our Time is Now: Young People Changing the World, as well as in many other publications. Selected for a leadership honor by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, she was also named to the 2003 USA Today All-USA Academic First Team honoring the top 20 college students in the United States. In 2002, she was named one of the "Top Ten College Women in America" by Glamour Magazine. She was also honored by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as a winner in the Young Epidemiology Scholars Competition. She also received the 2004 Global Youth Action Network's Global Youth Action Award as well as the 2004 YouthActionNet Award from the International Youth Foundation and Nokia for leading positive change throughout the world.

Dr. Bernard Kouchner, Co-Founder of Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontiers), wrote about Jennifer in the book _Our Time Is Now: Young People Changing The World_: "Over the centuries, most leaders have sought to bring about change through military intervention. I've tried to mobilize people to undertake another strategy - humanitarian intervention. Every citizen has the right to receive care and live with dignity, and national boundaries and political or financial circumstances cannot influence who receives that support. Through her work to expand the fight against blindness around the globe, Jennifer Staple has intervened in some of the world's poorest communities to ensure that their citizens, too, can lead healthy and productive lives."

Dr. Thomas Baah

Ghanaian Ophthalmologist and Unite For Sight Partner
Availability: Select Weeks in November and April of Each Year
Topics: Eye Care, Health Care in Africa, International Development, Role As “Foot Soldier” On Front Line of Battle Against Preventable Blindness

Biography: Dr. Thomas Tontie Baah is an ophthalmologist from Ghana. He describes himself as a dedicated foot soldier in the frontline of the battle against preventable blindness. Devastated by the sudden and needles death of his mother’s seventh born from measles, a preventable and treatable infection, Dr. Baah was challenged to become a doctor at the tender age of 12. He was in class six in a village school. He told everyone that he wanted to become a doctor, but he says that the odds were against him. Painful childhood experiences of living with a blind uncle who had gone blind long before he was born motivated him to pursue a career in ophthalmology. In 1998, Dr. Baah started an eye clinic in a mission hospital, the Our Lady of Grace Hospital in Breman Asikuma. The clinic has grown steadily over the years. It is now one of the leading eye clinics in Ghana in the forefront of the battle against preventable blindness. In addition to his training in ophthalmology in Ghana and India, Dr. Baah obtained his MSc in Community Eye Health in England. He was trained in India in phacoemulsification and other advanced ophthalmic techniques. His relationship with Unite For Sight started in 2006, and he is a close partner of Unite For Sight.  Dr. Baah is both an ophthalmologist and a general surgeon.

Dr. Baah’s presentations focus on his role as a foot soldier on the front line of the battle against preventable blindness.  His inspiring presentation discusses his childhood in a very rural, remote part of Ghana, his motivation to become a physician, and his work today as both a general surgeon and ophthalmologist in rural Ghana.  His most recent audiences have included students at Loyola Marymount University, New York Institute of Technology, Yale University, Stanford University, and Tulane University.

Dr. James Clarke

Ghanaian Ophthalmologist and Unite For Sight Medical Advisory Board Member
Availability: Select Weeks in November and April of Each Year
Topics: Eye Care, Health Care in Africa, International Development, Community Health Workers, Building Local Capacity, Refugee Health Care

Biography: Dr James Afful Clarke graduated from the University of Ghana Medical School with an MBChB. After a year of internship at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Ghana, he worked as a General Practitioner and did a General Surgery Residency at the University of Saarland Medical Faculty, Germany and thereafter practiced as a general surgeon in Ghana. In 1996, he obtained a Postgraduate Diploma in Ophthalmology from the West African Postgraduate Medical College and has since been practicing as an ophthalmology. He also holds a Diploma in Community Health and Tropical Medicine from the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in Berlin, Germany.

Dr. Clarke has done various clinical attachments at the University of Saarland Eye Clinic in Germany, Wake Forest Eye Center, Winston-Salem in North Carolina, Wheaton Eye Clinic in Chicago, and is a member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. He now runs an eye clinic in Accra, Ghana, where he provides outreach services in eye care and provides various surgical procedures, including corneal transplantation. He is the only ophthalmologist providing corneal transplantation in Ghana. Dr. Clarke is also a member of Unite For Sight's Medical Advisory Board and works closely with Unite For Sight's volunteers in Ghana.

Dr. Clarke frequently speaks about eye care in Ghana, global health, and international development.  His most recent audiences have included students at Duke University, Emory University, University of Iowa, Yale University, Stanford University, Tulane University, and University of Michigan.

Margaret Duah-Mensah

Ghanaian Ophthalmic Nurse and Unite For Sight Partner
Availability: Select Weeks in April of Each Year
Topics: Eye Care, Health Care in Africa, Nursing in Africa, Ophthalmic Nursing, International Development, Community Health Workers, Building Local Capacity, Refugee Health Care

Biography: Margaret Duah-Mensah received her nursing education in the Central Region of Ghana and worked as a general nurse at the Cape Coast Central Hospital. In 1989, she started eye care work in Cape Coast, also in the Central Region, in a clinic called Christian Eye Center, which was initiated in 1989 by two American ophthalmologists, including Dr. Peter Egbert. Intraocular lens implant after cataract surgery was started in this clinic.

In the face of few eye clinics to deal with the huge need in Ghana, Margaret was transferred to help establish an eye clinic in Sunyani, a city in the middle belt of Ghana. There were no resident doctors at the clinic. Margaret ran the day-to-day clinic and also screened patients for visiting American doctors, including Professor Peter Egbert.

After years of working in this position, Margaret was transferred to assist in the establishment of the Emmanuel Eye Clinic in Accra, which provided eye care to patients from all over Ghana and other parts of West Africa. In the early days, most of the surgeries were performed by American doctors. Margaret also worked with Ghanaian doctors who later joined the team.

In 2003, Margaret joined Crystal Eye Clinic to assist Dr. Clarke in running the clinic and performing surgeries. Crystal Eye Clinic is a partner of Unite For Sight, and Margaret has provided numerous outreach screenings for Unite For Sight programs over the past two years. She provides eye care regularly at Buduburam Refugee Camp and other remote villages throughout Ghana.

Margaret’s presentations focus on her role as an ophthalmic nurse in Ghana and the challenges of providing eye care in rural villages and in refugee camps.  Her most recent audiences have included students at Duke University, Yale University, Stanford University, and Jefferson Medical College. 

Dr. Seth Wanye

Ghanaian Ophthalmologist and Unite For Sight Medical Advisory Board Member
Availability: Select Weeks in November and April of Each Year
Topics: Eye Care, Health Care in Africa, International Development, Role As The Only Ophthalmologist For 2 Million People In Northern Ghana

Biography: Dr. Seth Wanye is an ophthalmologist at The Eye Clinic of Tamale Teaching Hospital in Northern Ghana and a member of Unite For Sight's Medical Advisory Board.  He is the only ophthalmologist for more than 2 million people in the Northern Region of Ghana.  Born in Ghana, he received his medical degree from Kharkov Medical School (Ukraine) in 1990 and continued graduate studies at Ulianovsk State University (Russia). From 1997-2000, he completed his internship and Master of Surgery (Ophthalmology) in Moscow Medical Academy and completed his PhD in Ophthalmology at the Russian Academy for Advanced Medical Training in 2002. He subsequently worked with SDA Hospital at Asamang near Kumasi and at Komfo Anoyke Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Ghana. In May 2004, Dr. Wanye became Regional Ophthalmologist and Coordinator for Trachoma Control Program for Northern Region, Ghana. He is also a part-time lecturer at the University for Development Studies in Tamale.

Dr. Wanye’s presentations discuss his role as the only ophthalmologist for 2 million people in Northern Ghana.  He also speaks about “brain drain” and his motivation to become an ophthalmologist and serve the rural poor in Ghana.  His most recent audiences have included students at Yale University, Cornell University, Ithaca College, Tulane University, New York Institute of Technology, and Stanford University.