Documenting
Orbis International

ORBIS is a non-aligned, non-profit global development organization. Their goal is to preserve and restore sight by strengthening the capacity of local partners to prevent and treat blindness. I have been privileged to work with Orbis as Volunteer Faculty, as a Telemedicine Consultant, and as a PR Photographer.

At the same time, I have been pursuing a long term personal photographic project documenting Orbis' work in blindness prevention. The official story (capsualized below) describes Orbis as a many tiered, multi-national effort. There is, of course, much to this perspective. It takes significant effort to transport a modern Flying Eye Hospital to countries with less advanced eye care.

However, my personal perspective is that the Orbis experience is strongest when individuals from very different backgrounds use eye health as a common ground for communication. I'm interested in how Orbis enables interactions between individuals of various cultures. I'm interested in showing each person's expression of care: interactions between patients and professionals, between colleagues of different philosophies, and between learners and mentors.

Best known for their flying eye hospital, ORBIS delivers eye care and blindness prevention resources in four distinct ways:

In the Air via the world's only airborne eye hospital and training facility, a specially rebuilt DC-10;

At the Site through short-term hospital-based programs that build local blindness prevention capacity;

On the Ground through long-term programs in five countries that work to build eye care and blindness prevention infrastructure on a larger scale;

In Cyberspace through their new CYBER-SIGHT project that connects partner ophthalmologists throughout the world with one-on-one mentoring and case-by-case consultation via the internet.

I encourage you to support this non-profit humanitarian organization. Read more about ORBIS at their website (www.orbis.org - includes a direct donation link).

Download Articles about Orbis
Sight for Sore Eyes
Dartmouth Medicine 2001;26(1):26-35, cover
Download .pdf

Digital Biomedical Photojournalism
Journal Biological Communication 2002;29(1)2-7
Download .pdf

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