You don't even have to bluff. Won't you look smart when you can tell people about ORBIS? As part of their mission to save sight on three continents, they do indeed have a flying eye hospital, equip with sterile operating room and recovery room, laser treatment room, and classroom space to educate local people about how to save sight. This traveling hospital is staffed by volunteer doctors and primarily provides surgeries to children, people blind in both eyes, and people who otherwise would not be able to afford a surgery.
The ORBIS mission to save sight for the world isn't limited to their flying hospital. They have six regional offices around the world, and they fly doctors out to educate local optometrists, health officials and NGOs. Usually, their training programs will last three years, during which time they instruct them on method for diagnosing eye problems, treating them, and performing surgeries. This is part of their capacity building strategy, which maximizes their impact by letting local people take over and help themselves with the tools and training they are given. This is probably a large part of the reason why they have a 4 out of 4 star rating on Charity Navigator!
Here is what else they say about their capacity building program:
* Training eye care professionals in the prevention and treatment of eye diseases prevalent in their region and ensuring that these skills are effectively put into practice
* Strengthening the different types of eye care institutions, such as hospitals, medical schools and eye banks, so that they have the tools in place to continually deliver urgently needed eye care services
* Introducing health care financing systems, such as tiered payment plans, so that even the poorest of the poor can access sight-saving surgery
* Providing ophthalmic equipment, such as digital retinal cameras, indirect ophthalmoscopes and operating microscopes, and training staff to properly use and maintain this equipment
* Advocating on behalf of legislation promoting and supporting eye health on the national health care agenda
* Generating public awareness that some forms of blindness can be prevented or treated and don’t have to be accepted as fate
In the past 26 years, they've already provided over 900 of these programs! You can read some of their success stories here.
As you can see, they've assisted people losing their sight to cataracts, injuries, and a number of different causes, and yeah, it's great that they can see. It's something we all tend to take for granted until it's gone. Consider how one change--restoring someone's sight--can allow them to support themselves in the future. Poverty alleviation requires removing things standing between people and the ability to help themselves, and blindness is one of those things that can be treated.
Payment Procedures:
Go to the DONATE NOW page, and make your credit card payment from there. Or, if you're not from the United States, you can select from one of their other regional sites listed on that page.
You also have the option of donating frequent flier miles! I'm doing money for now, but I might see about doing something with my United Mileage Plus miles. Hmmmmm.
For those of you cool enough to be ophthalmology professionals and airplane pilots, you can also volunteer your services for ORBIS! The rest of us can still do fundraising and advocacy.
