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So Kids Can See (SKCS) focuses it's goals on three main undertakings: connecting people, implementing primary eye healthcare, and building sustainable solutions.
Connecting People
We are working to bring eye care organizations and individuals together to reduce costs, redundency and fill in any of the missing gaps. If you are or know someone who is involved in eye care please consider adding your information to our database. The better our communication, networking and collaboration skills, the better the outcome for our intentions.
Primary Healthcare
The impairment of vision decreases a child's ability to learn. So Kids Can See focuses on helping provide children with the best possible learning opportunities by collaborating with educational facilities and providing primary school teachers underdeveloped communities with the skills, knowledge and awareness of children's eye health and diseases worldwide.
Sustainable Solutions
PROJECT 1: In collaboration with a local optometrist in Kenya and a total of 9 educational facilities in the Nairobi Slum, Kayole, opportunity has presented itself, where; the local optometrist has agreed to help support the set up of an optometry store slum location, where slum residents receive new affordable refractive eye wear; and the location may maintain profit to provide an income for staff and set up a fund to provide surgeries for other eye impairments in children.
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| The People |
Lindsay Hampton, Founder
Lindsay has been with the the Hospital For Sick Children Toronto, Canada since 2004, as an Ophthalmic Imaging Specialist. She currently holds her position with the hospital on a casual basis in order to progress the development of So Kids Can See.
She has been consistently chairing fund raising events through various means for Daisy’s Eye Cancer Fund since 2005 and was appointed Volunteer Public Relations Officer in 2007. Lindsay developed Art For Eyes in 2005, a global initiative to raise funding, awareness and provide art therapy for children diagnosed with retinoblastoma, childhood eye cancer.
She has been a team member of "No Boundaries" Medical Mission Team with SickKids and St. Michael's Hospital's "Urban Angels", traveling to both Peru and the Philippines. In addition, Lindsay donates her time with One Retintoblastoma World and Daisy's Eye Cancer Fund to teach her skills as an imaging specialist abroad in Egypt, India and Africa. Helping advance the skills and techniques of physicians who are treating children with retinoblastoma.
Lindsay brings to the organization her knowledge of children's eye health, her global perspective in combination with her degree in communications and photojournalism. Lindsay strongly believes in unifying like minded individuals and finding sustainable solutions to faciliate the best possible outcome for the eye health of Children, "the only way for us to become more responsible with our time, resources and money is to collaborate".
lindsay@sokidscansee.org
416-834-0747
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Dr. Ashwin Mallipatna, International Medical Director, India
Dr. Ashwin Mallipatna is currently working as a consultant in Department of Pediatric Ophthalmology & Strabismology at Narayana Nethralaya, Bangalore, India, in Retinoblastoma Service. His expertise includes paediatric ophthalmology and strabismus, ocular genetics and retinoblastoma.
He completed his clinical fellowship in paediatric ophthalmology and retinoblastoma at Hospital for Sick Children at Toronto.
Ashwin is dedicated to the advanced awareness and treatment of retinoblastoma in developing nations.
A major issue in many parts of the globe are the deeply entrenched social stigmas which make helping the visually impaired harder than it ought to be.
One of his major projects includes borrowing techniques from the red-eye effect, that scourge of amateur photography. With this technique he is able to point out to anyone owning a camera that often the first signs of retinoblastoma are easily spotted in home flash photography photos. For more information please visit this article published in the economist. http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/08/frugal-innovation
The next step for screening in India will be to join forces with the National Rural Health Mission with a view to making eye screening compulsory, and bundling it with vaccinations.
Dr. Aswhwin Mallipatna joined So Kids Can See to help broaden his vision beyond the boarders of India and bring his vast knowledge of the trials and tributes of working in developing countries, while advising and helping direct international projects for So Kids Can See.
aswhin@sokidscansee.org
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Amanda Comette, Director of Human and Volunteer Services
Amanda has worked in Health Care for 15 years starting in the ER in 1996. She has travelled to volunteer her time living in a Kibbutz in Israel and with organizations such as Free the Children.
She is trained in Holistic Health, has her degree in Philosophy from York University and more recently has completed her Human Resources Management accreditation, CHRP(C).
Amanda aspires to improve the quality of life for children in need of eye care by increasing awareness of childhood blindness and the need for resources and tools.
Bringing awareness back to our basic needs, by implementing eye exams across Canada to grade school children and reducing stigma of children with disabilies from visual emparement are things that Amanda is passionate in helping change.
A side project that Amanda is working on is working towards improving the quality of life for seniors. She believes that there needs to be a great increase in people’s awareness of the need for accessibility and affordable solutions for housing and caregiving for our aging population.
amanda@sokidscansee.org
416-892-8745
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Sophia Park, Web Developer
Sophia is a student at the University of Toronto, working towards a degree in Sociology and Computer Science. She currently works and volunteers for several non-profit organizations. She joined So Kids Can See (SKCS) because she believes in its purpose and graciously donates her skills and time to this cause. Sophia is responsible for improving and advancing the capabilities of this website and is an integral part of the vision of SKCS.
sophia@sokidscansee.org
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For more information please visit this link prepared by the World Health Organization and
International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, 2004. |
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