Sight For All, an Australian Not For Profit organisation headquartered in Adelaide has a ‘Teach a Man to Fish’ approach to provide a sustainable pathway to eliminating treatable blindness both locally and abroad.
Sight For All’s international projects are largely focused on training general ophthalmologists to become specialists to treat patients in their home countries with eye conditions including glaucoma, acquired retinal diseases and eye diseases specifically affecting babies and children.
This teaching is largely undertaken via Sight For All’s In-Country Fellowship Program where Australian and New Zealand ophthalmologists volunteer their time to travel to a partner country to train local general ophthalmologists to become experts in their chosen sub-specialty area.
While Sight For All has undertaken their in-Country Fellowship Program in seven countries over the past 15 years, the current countries of focus are Cambodia, Fiji, Lao, Mongolia and Papua New Guinea.
In Mongolia, this has included training ten general ophthalmologists to become specialists in the ophthalmic sub-specialty areas of glaucoma and neuro-ophthalmology. To support the in-country training, Sight For All provides the Fellows with the opportunity to undertake observerships in Australia, allowing these doctors to learn and develop further skills in Australian hospital settings.
Over the past two years, Sight For All has been successful in being selected as a host organisation for the Australian Awards Fellowship Program, a valuable capacity building initiative that strengthens partnerships between Australia and eligible developing country organisations. This year, through this initiative, Sight For All has been able to mobilise five Glaucoma and five Neuro-ophthalmology Fellows from Mongolia to Sydney to undertake four week observerships, and to attend the renowned Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmology (RANZCO) Congress held in Adelaide from 1-4 November.
As a result of their In-Country Fellowship training and observerships in Sydney, these ten Fellows will have the skills, knowledge and experience to detect and treat patients in the ophthalmic sub-specialty areas of glaucoma and neuro-ophthalmology. Furthermore, they will go on to train their own Fellows. This is the sustainable nature of Sight For All’s international projects.
Sight For All is very grateful to the Australian Government, through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to have been selected as a host organisation for the Australian Awards Fellowship Program in 2024. In addition to the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmology, Sight For All also acknowledges the tremendous support of the following hospitals for making the observerships possible:
– Sydney Eye Hospital
– Westmead Hospital
– Royal North Shore Hospital
– Royal Prince Alfred Hospital
