ANSHU CHANDRA - the Global Eye Project
Last Thursday, the Club welcomed ANSHU CHANDRA from the Global Eye Project, via ZOOM, who brought us a touching story about the state of eye care in Haiti, and what has become a personal campaign of hers to improve the horrible situation by bringing eye care to rural Haiti. Anshu, who is a Dr.of Optometry, spoke of her life changing trip where she visited many countries ,observing eye care in different environments. Her travels led her to Haiti where she saw the most horrible of conditions concerning the care that was available for the rural population, mostly non-existent. She encountered one part time clinic to which people would travel for hours to reach for just minimal care for their eyesight. She raised money to aid the clinic, and donated her services to the clinic staff, and made a commitment to do whatever she could to help sustain and expand the clinic.
The 2008 earthquake in Haiti made the situation much worse, leaving the population with virtually no eye care and people traveling 48 hours to receive what little care was available. Anshu reacted to this by forming support for the clinic when she was in the U.S. and returned to Haiti in 2015 with funding to expand the clinic's operation, and build a new facility. The clinic went from its limited services to an 11 room facility the served over 100 patients a day.
Besides eye treatments, they engage the community with education on eye care and injury prevention, and set up a kids program reaching 1500 kids per year, the first such program in Haiti.
Anshu is back here now to raise funds for the clinic which lost its lease and is forced to build a new facility. The goal is to raise $300,000. The community has rallied around the clinic and land had been donated to the project.
If you would like to learn more, and donate to this critical cause, reach out to her at:
Anshu.Chandra@gmail.com
or visit
www.globaleyeproject.org
thank you, Anshu for this informative talk.
