Ford to receive international volunteer award

Valda Boyd Ford talks to children in an orphanage in Sierra Leone. Photos courtesy of Valda Ford.

Valda Boyd Ford, director of UNMC’s Community and Multicultural Affairs, will receive the 2006 Unite For Sight International Volunteer of the Year Award. She was selected from more than 4,000 volunteers worldwide who served the organization last year. Her award will be presented at an international conference April 1-2, at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.

Unite for Sight is a non-profit organization that empowers communities worldwide to improve eye health and eliminate preventable blindness. Volunteer teams work with partner eye clinics in developing countries to provide eye care and eye health education programs. Volunteers working in 90 chapters established at universities and in communities also implement vision screening and education programs worldwide.

Ford is Unite For Sight Director of Refugee Initiatives and in the past 15 months served the world relief agency as a volunteer in the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana (Dec. 28, 2004 to March. 3, 2005 and April 6-20, 2005); Taiama Refugee Camp in Sierra Leone (June 1-16, 2005) and the Galle Refugee Camp in Sri Lanka (July 7-21, 2005).

In preparation for her first trip to Buduburam, the largest refugee camp in West Africa with more than 70,000 refugees, Ford initiated a used eye wear donation drive that resulted in more than 2,000 pairs of used prescription eye wear and hundreds of pairs of sunglasses. She recruited numerous local opticians and eye specialists to voluntarily read the prescription in each of the donated glasses, so the refraction was noted on every pair when she arrived in Africa.

In Sierra Leone, volunteers hung eye charts wherever they could.

Ford was personally trained to use an opthalmaloscope and to do basic visual acuity tests in the camps to determine the refugees’ prescription and then matched their prescription to one of the donated eyeglasses. Hundreds of people obtained eyeglasses through the program.

In addition, Ford collected thousands of dollars in cash donations (much from her own pocket) which were used to provide on-site cataract surgery for scores of refugees by volunteer and partnering eye surgeons. Thousands of refugees received eye exams and education sessions on their eyes and how to care for them under the camp’s harsh living standards.

As Ford completed similar duties in Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka, she quickly became a well-known member of the world staff and was named Unite for Sight Director of Refugee Initiatives. In the summer of 2005 she helped two UNMC medical students plan 30-day volunteer stints for Unite for Sight in two African nations, and started a campus chapter at UNMC. She developed sustainable programs teaching teachers to screen children.

One of the many dangerous bridges Ford had to cross multiple times in Africa.

In 2006, Ford was asked to coordinate a national eye health screening drive in five American cities. That campaign, a collaboration between Unite For Sight and Pfizer Corporation, led to eye screenings for thousands of African Americans and multiple eye care workshops.

“Being recognized as a Humanitarian Volunteer of the Year means a great deal to me,” Ford said. “The volunteers with Unite For Sight are all committed to making this world a better place – one person and one place at a time. The people I worked with and the people I met changed me forever and have made me appreciate the people around me all the more.

“As one of the oldest volunteers, I feel privileged to be recognized by my much younger and much more energetic peers. Nothing is better than feeling the love of people I respect. I may be getting this award as much for being the ‘senior’ volunteer in three countries as anything else. It is expected that the young one will be the most okay sleeping in a tent, carrying water, taking bucket showers and battling the bugs. Somehow, I never got sick and actually did a lot of tending to the sick among my fellow volunteers.

“I enjoyed the people of Sierra Leone the most but the conditions there were the most pitiful of any I’ve ever seen. The locals and refugees lived in conditions that we would normally call ‘sub-human,’ but they made it through each day with style and grace.

“The most important part about being recognized as Volunteer of the Year is the satisfaction of knowing that my constant nudging about cultural competence has been embraced by the whole organization. Unite For Sight has more than 4,000 volunteers traveling all over the world. This can be an amazing experience for the volunteer and the people in distant lands, but the lack of knowledge about cultural norms can upset the best laid plans and sometimes even shut an entire project down.”

Said Jennifer Staple, founder, president and CEO, Unite For Sight: “It is a privilege and honor to work with Valda, and she is the model for the ultimate volunteer. Valda has a unique combination of talent, leadership and compassion that make her an incredible volunteer in any setting. Every local partner non-governmental agency, and each Unite For Sight volunteer working with Valda, professes their appreciation for her dedication, passion and altruism. She inspires by example.”