Setting Her Sights On Ghana

By Nancy K. Crevier

Her freshman year at UConn, where she is majoring in psychology, is over, but the real learning experience for Jessica DiVanno is still ahead. On July 20, Jessica, the daughter of Petrice and Tony DiVanno of Sandy Hook, will travel to Ghana with Unite for Sight, a foundation dedicated to providing eye care to third world countries.

Unite For Sight was founded by Newtown resident Jennifer Staple in 2000 during her sophomore year at Yale University. The global organization encompasses 90 chapters throughout the world that provide eye care to more than 200,000 people annually in Africa and Asia, according to the Unite for Sight website. Jessica will be one of 250 volunteers who travels abroad each year to assist at Unite For Sight’s partner eye clinics.

“I’ve always been involved in volunteer things,” said Jessica. “I have taken part the past three summers with our [Trinity] church youth group, going to group work camps to help out for a week in impoverished parts of the country, and I have volunteered on and off at Ashlar for several years,” she said. “I love helping people.” As a student at Newtown High School, Jessica was also very involved in NYCAAP (Newtown Youth Creating AIDS Awareness Program), where she learned a lot about Africa and the health issues there.

She has been interested in Africa since she was a child. “I had an Egyptian collection, anything to do with Egypt,” she recalled. Her interest in the continent grew from there, so when she heard about the Unite for Sight program in Ghana from her mother’s colleague, Karen King, a sixth grade teacher at Reed Intermediate who has traveled several times to Ghana, she decided to research the foundation and apply to be a volunteer.

“I’m very interested in the humanitarian aspect,” said Jessica. “[Unite for Sight] seemed like a good opportunity to reach out to people who need help. One thing on the website really got to me and I knew I wanted to go: 80 percent of blindness is preventable,” she said. Simple eye care or surgeries that are taken for granted in this country are frequently outside of the reach of those in poor countries, so eye disease and infections steal sight that could be saved with intervention.

Wanting to be a volunteer with Unite for Sight and actually being selected are two different things, though. The application process involves a fair amount of work. “Unite for Sight is definitely looking for people who are dedicated to the program, not just those who are curious or not willing to work,” she said.

 She was required to submit several essays on a broad range of topics, from health to cultural differences. She had to take an online health course to learn about the eye and eye disease, and get at least an 85 percent score on the test at the end of the course. “We also had to watch videos about cultural competency, eye training, international health, and read literature. It was at least 25 items in all,” she said. Before she leaves for Accra, Ghana, on July 20, Jessica must train for two to three days with an eye doctor and take another online course to learn visual acuity training.

While her exact duties are not yet assigned, Jessica does know that she will be going out to rural villages around Accra to assist patients in getting to eye clinics where they can get care. “Many people do not have transportation to get to the eye clinics. We will provide transportation for free and even accommodations during any recovery time after surgery. Think how scary that is for someone who is blind and doesn’t know you. They put a lot of trust in our hands, and that’s why we do so much cultural training before we go,” said Jessica. She has also been told that as a Unite for Sight volunteer, one of her duties will be providing eye testing to patients.

Dr Joseph Young of Village Eye Care in Newtown has agreed to let Jessica shadow him. He previously provided the same service for Karen King, and is pleased to accommodate another Unite for Sight volunteer. “It is very nice to see people who are willing to provide this kind of care, who are doing it to be nice, not to make money,” said Dr Young.

What Jessica will learn from him is outlined in Unite for Sight literature and includes understanding what a cataract is and how to identify one; recognizing a corneal ulcer vs a cataract; learning what a red reflex is; learning what kinds of cataracts exist and what they look like; knowing what glaucoma is and why the optic nerve is important; knowing how the eye sees images; understanding how glasses work to correct refractive error; and identifying conjunctivitis and retinal diseases. He will also help her learn patient care standards.

“Basically, the internship will be a general overall program to help differentiate between ‘normal’ and ‘severe’ eye problems. She will need to know how to assess patients as to whether they need immediate action or can wait,” said Dr Young.

He has not traveled with Unite for Sight, but as a medical student traveled with a similar program, Volunteer Optometry Services to Humanity. “This is something everyone should do. When a patient gets a 20-minute cataract surgery and they can see their grandchildren for the first time, the look on that person’s face is worth more than you can imagine,” Dr Young said.

Along with the crash course in eye care, Jessica deposited $1,400 in the Unite for Sight fund, which she will get back if she raises that much before June 20, and she needs to collect 300 to 500 pairs of glasses, reading glasses, or sunglasses by that date, as well. So far, she has had about 50 pairs of glasses donated, she said.

The final flight plans have not yet been made, but she estimates airfare will cost her nearly $1,500. That is strictly out of pocket.

“I would like to raise at least the $1,400 I put down, but if I could raise $2,500 or more, that would be so great,” said Jessica. She

is relying on donations, all of which go directly to Unite for Sight, at her website uniteforsight.org/intl_volunteer/pages/?name=Jessica%20DiVanno, and also for support at her tag sale, scheduled for June 14. The tag sale will be held starting at 9 am at 43 Jo-Mar Drive in Sandy Hook, and like any direct donations, the proceeds will go entirely to Unite for Sight, not to offset her personal costs for the trip. Videos about the program and information about Jessica and Unite for Sight are online at her website, as well.

She welcomes any donations for the tag sale. To arrange to drop off items for the tag sale or to donate used eye glasses, call Jessica at 426-4418.

“A cataract surgery takes only 15 or 20 minutes and costs just $15 to $150. So every donation, small or large, could be saving someone’s eye sight. In Ghana, these people might only be making $1 a day, so what is affordable to us is not for them. My little sister gave me $40 that she had made babysitting and I said, ‘Wow. Do you realize you probably saved the sight for two or three people?’ It is amazing,” said Jessica. To put it in perspective, it is not uncommon for Newtown residents to spend $15 every week buying coffee, she pointed out.

“I couldn’t be more excited to be going,” said Jessica. “I’m going to be learning so much from them.”