June 2022 Newsletter

This month President Ciszek reflects on the work on diversity and inclusiveness of VOSH/International, we highlight important requests from our chapters, including leading a clinic in Grenada, congratulate the Illinois College of Optometry on its 150th anniversary, provide a summary of a research focused clinic in Panama led by two of our student chapters, remind you of the Prevent Blindness July Summit where VOSH/International will receive an important award and much more.

President's Insights

This month President Ciszek reflects on the value of diversity, representation and inclusiveness that VOSH/International and its chapters represent.

Read the whole article here

VOSH chapters' updates and requests

Urgent request: Grenada Eye Clinic: a VOSH team is needed September 5-9

VOSH-NC is scheduled to provide vision clinics in four different parishes in Grenada September 5-9, 2022. This is annual clinic has been running for over 20 years, and is run in partnership with Grenada Rotary East which takes care of all local preparations. For the past few clinics and in the upcoming mission, we bring students from SUNY’s SVOSH chapter.

Unfortunately, VOSH-NC will not be able to lead this clinic this year. Therefore, we are looking for another chapter to continue this partnership with Grenada Rotary East and SUNY. Perhaps your chapter can help?. VOSH-NC would like to see this incredible partnership continuing. Read more details of this great opportunity here including the invitation from the Ministry of Health for the upcoming clinic. Feel free to contact Jill Scullion, president VOSH-NC at jillscullion@gmail.com.

SVOSH-PCO is looking to join a VOSH clinic in 2023

The SVOSH chapter at Salus University is looking to join other VOSH chapters organising humanitarian clinics in May 2023. The 4th year PCO students consider “It would be a wonderful opportunity to serve as soon-to-be doctors prior to matriculation especially since we were unable to serve during our time at school due to the pandemic”. If your chapter is willing to include students in your 2023 humanitarian clinics please contact Jaskirat Sahni, President SVOSH-PCO at sosh@salus.edu

SVOSH-PUCO Amigos chapter newsletter

The Spring 2022 newsletter produced by the SVOSH chapter at the Pacific University College of Optometry, AMIGOS is available here. It is full of information and features the clinic to Easter Oregon to serve native communities supported by one of our small grants.

Does your chapter produce a newsletter? Please let us know

A milestone anniversary

The Illinois College of Optometry (ICO) celebrated its 150^th anniversary with an open house on June 17^th. ICO is the oldest optometric education institution in the world with operations since 1872! We are very grateful to the ICO for kindly hosting our midyear meeting at their premises and making us part of the celebrations. Special thanks to Dr Tracy Matchinski, past President of VOSH/International and faculty adviser of our SVOSH-ICO chapter, all the SVOSH-ICO students under the gracious leadership of Ani Tokhmakhian and our IT friend Waldo Duran. It was an honor to be part of this milestone anniversary.

Have you registered?

On July 13-14, 2022, Prevent Blindness will host the 11th annual Focus on Eye Health National Summit around the theme "Eye-conic Approaches to Eye Health". President Ciszek will receive the 2022 Jenny Pomeroy Award for Excellence in Vision and Public Health on behalf of VOSH/International. Register now and celebrate the contribution of VOSH/international

Addressing the eye health needs of indigenous communities in Panama

Did you ever wonder about the prevalence of refractive error among indigenous communities in Latin America? There is a big gap in this area of knowledge. The SVOSH chapters at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico and at the Universidad Especializada de Las Americas in Panama are collaborating to carry out a research project to identify the prevalence of RE among the Guna indigenous community in Panama. The first clinic took place at the end of May and work will continue throughout 2022. Read more about this important work here. Congratulations SVOSH-IAUPR and SVOSH-UDELAS

In partnership with the Peruvian Socios En Salud Center for Global Health , Partners In Health is launching a free 5-session online course on why global health must be decolonized and how countries are advancing the movement.

También disponible en español. Register here.

Interesting publication

Cost and budget impact analysis of a school-based vision screening programme in Cambodia and Ghana: Implications for policy and programme scale-up

Poor vision due to unaddressed refractive error in children is considered to be a public health problem in many low- and middle-income countries. Research shows that correcting refractive error with spectacles could have a positive impact on school attendance and academic performance for children. The aim of this study was to estimate the cost of integrating vision screening and provision of spectacles in existing school health programmes in Cambodia and Ghana. Download the whole article here.

2022 Midyear meeting is held successfully in Chicago

This year we participated in the AOA’s Optometry’s Meeting Exhibit, co-hosted the Future Leaders Reception with AOSA and joined ICO in the celebrations of its 150^th Anniversary. On June 18^th we held a hybrid midyear meeting where we assessed progress and had the opportunity to learn more about our projects supporting optometry in Haiti, Nicaragua and thecollaboration between SVOSH chapters as per the recent clinic in Panama. Engaging discussions took place and new friends were made. The recordings of the main sessions will be available soon.

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