Ethics and Quality: Best Practices in Volunteerism

Unite For Sight applies best practices in eye care, public health, and volunteerism to achieve our goal of high quality eye care for all. We engage, inspire, and train volunteers to support and assist eye clinics globally through our hands-on volunteer abroad programs.

While making a high-impact difference to eliminate preventable blindness, Unite For Sight is training the next generation of leaders in global health. Our priority is to instill in our volunteers a thorough understanding of sustainable best practice principles in volunteerism, global health, and international development. While participating in Unite For Sight's programs abroad, our volunteers are immersed in effective, high quality programs that achieve effective change.

“It’s a fabulous idea – tapping into youth who have energy and idealism, but don’t necessarily have an application for that energy. This is such a satisfying experience and such a vital experience for young people to become involved in. The world becomes a larger place, one feels a sense of purpose working with needy people, and it expands one’s horizon, working in the developing world.”--Dr. Aron Rose, Associate Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology, Yale University; Unite for Sight Volunteer in Ghana

Best Practice Principles in Volunteerism Applied

• Volunteer Training
  • Comprehensive training is essential for volunteers. Volunteers who are not both practically and psychologically competent to work abroad can be a burden to a global health organization and its local partners. On the other hand, well-prepared volunteers can make an immediate, vitally important, high-impact difference.
  • Unite For Sight educates volunteers on local culture, ethics, and professionalism. Without such preparation, volunteers can fail to relate well to local patients and medical professionals, which can undermine the relationship between patients and local medical providers.
  • The second component of volunteer training is pragmatic. Standard volunteers must be competent to support and assist eye clinic staff by providing basic visual acuity screenings, providing education, distributing the medication and eyeglasses prescribed by the local eye doctors, and assisting in other tasks. Incompetent volunteers can do more harm than good by propogating false information, or interfering with proper medical care. All Unite For Sight standard volunteers are therefore required to complete a learning process about international eye care, including an Eye Health Online Course, pre-service training with an eye doctor, review of an eye pathology manual, a Global Health Online Course, a Volunteer Ethics and Professionalism Online Course, a Cultural Competency Online Course, an Entrepreneurial Volunteering Online Course, and other required online videos and readings.
• Volunteers Are Effective With Measurable Results
  • Volunteers are locally led and managed by Unite For Sight's partner eye clinics.
  • Volunteers assist local eye clinics to provide comprehensive year-round care that addresses the root causes of patient barriers to care.
  • Efficiency: With the assistance of Unite For Sight volunteers, the local eye doctors are able to significantly increase their efficiency and examine and diagnose 100-300 patients in a single day. While the local eye doctors focus on the examinations and diagnoses, the Unite For Sight standard volunteers assist in all other aspects of the needed work: patient intake, patient histories, visual acuity screenings, and distribution of medication and eyeglases prescribed by the eye doctors. Unite For Sight's visiting optometrist and ophthalmologist volunteers work closely with the local eye doctors to assist with providing eye care in the community, and visiting ophthalmologists work with the local ophthalmologists to provide surgery as well as skills transfer.
  • Education: Volunteers are indispensible in educating communities about healthcare access, basic disease prevention measures, and treatment options.
  • Measuring Results: Volunteers assist the local eye clinics with recording, compiling, and submitting patient outcome data to Unite For Sight.
  • Financial: Fundraising is an important component of volunteering. Unite For Sight's funding enables the local eye clinics to reach their greatest potential and focus on providing eye care for patients living in extreme poverty who are unable to pay. Unite For Sight subsidizes medical costs, fully funds patient surgeries, provides grants to local eye clinics to hire local outreach staff, and provides medical equipment and supplies. Volunteers are able to generate important donations so that Unite For Sight's programs have an even greater impact.