Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Global Impact Corps: Global Health Volunteer Abroad Opportunity

Join Unite For Sight’s Global Impact Corps for a hands-on, immersive global health experience.  A transformative volunteer abroad experience for students and professionals, Unite For Sight is renowned as the highest quality global health immersion and volunteer abroad program worldwide. Unite For Sight prides itself on offering the best global health experience for our volunteers, coupled with the highest quality healthcare delivery programs with their partners.

Locations of Year-Round Health Care Delivery: Ghana, Honduras, and India
(volunteer for 7 days, 15 days, 20 days, 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 10 weeks, or more)

What do Unite For Sight volunteers do?  Global Impact Corps volunteers come from very diverse backgrounds, including those interested in public health, medicine, international development, social entrepreneurship, and the social sciences. While volunteering abroad, they support and learn from the partner clinics' talented medical professionals who are social entrepreneurs addressing complex global health issues.  Global Impact Fellows gain a comprehensive understanding about the complexities and realities of global health, social entrepreneurship, and international development.

Global Impact Fellow volunteers work with local doctors to eliminate patient barriers to care for patients living in extreme poverty.  They assist with patient education, visual acuity screening, patient intake, distributing the glasses and medication prescribed by the local eye doctors, and other important support tasks.  They also have the opportunity to observe the surgeries provided by the local doctors.  Additionally, volunteers may participate in the Global Impact Lab, an optional program for those interested in pursuing global health research. For example, they currently have volunteers pursuing research studies about medication management, the use of visual resources for patient education, traditional medicine practices, and patient barriers to care.

What do volunteers say? "I gained a vast basin of knowledge not only about eye health, but also on the healthcare infrastructure, patient interactions, and management systems of the developing world. Reading about health issues in the news or in class became stark reality during my summer in Dhenkanal, and I now aim to reinvigorate my efforts to study and contribute to the field of international health." Pallavi Basu, Global Impact Fellow.  See more volunteer accounts at http://www.uniteforsight.org/volunteer-abroad/volunteer-accounts