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The International Centre for Eyecare Education (ICEE) runs a Spectacle Technician Training course in Phnom Penh.
Education programs are the basis through which ICEE is helping to fundamentally change access to eye care throughout the country, ensuring services are sustainable, and provided and maintained by local eye health workers.
One local eye health worker is Narun, a Spectacle Technician with hopes of one day being a nurse.
Narun is a spectacle technician working at the Takeo Eye Hospital in the southern Cambodian province of Takeo, a region characterised by a network of low-lying fields divided by irrigation channels, which at this time of the year are baked dry and crying out to be revived by the rains of the coming wet season.
Narun originally came from Takeo but, prior to his current job, had spent the previous ten years living in the bustling, chaotic capital Phnom Penh to attend school. After finishing high school he was selected by the Takeo Eye Hospital to attend an ICEE spectacle technician training course in Phnom Penh. The two-week intensive course he completed in November 2009 equipped him with the skills to cut and fit spectacle lenses, allowing him to now perform the important role of providing custom-made spectacles for patients at the hospital.
Patients found to have eye conditions correctible with an appropriate pair of spectacles are referred to the optical shop where after selecting a pair of low-cost spectacle frames, Narun cuts and fits the appropriate lenses into the frames.
Narun’s story exemplifies the positive effects that collaborative efforts between government, communities and NGOs in Cambodia are having. He and his colleague in the optical shop, Phoumary, were both trained by ICEE. They are now working in a hospital established by the local government and supported by CBM Australia, another Vision 2020 Global Consortium member supported by the Australian Government’s Avoidable Blindness Initiative (ABI). Takeo Eye Hospital is also an educational facility, providing critical training for ophthalmologists and ophthalmic nurses in a country with insufficient human resources in health care.
In a country with a traumatic recent history these initiatives are not only helping to build health services and local capacity but are giving the country’s youth training, career opportunities and a brighter future.
Narun’s magnetic smile and enthusiasm to demonstrate his work immediately tells you he’s thrilled to have had this opportunity. 'I’m happy to come here, because now I have a job and I can come home to my own province. I can still return to Phnom Penh on weekends to visit my brother and sister’.
In a country teeming with motorbikes, it’s no surprise he’s also excited at the prospect of soon having enough money to buy his own. ‘I’m happy to be able to earn some money and hoping in a few months I’ll have my own motorbike’, he says with broad grin.
The success in his current position has also given him the confidence to dream about his career in the health care field. With unmistakeable hope and optimism he says, ’One day in the future I would like to become a nurse’.
Education programs are the basis through which ICEE is helping to fundamentally change access to eye care throughout the country. By developing human resource capacity to not only deliver eye care services but to create systems that result in local educators training eye care personnel, ICEE is ensuring these services are sustainable, and provided and maintained by local eye health workers.
On the same day of the visit to the optical shop at Takeo Eye Hospital, a new vision centre opened at the nearby Kirivong District Hospital—a collaborative effort between the Kirivong Operational District and Takeo Eye Hospital and supported by AusAID and CBM Australia.
Earlier in the week the Australian Government launched its ABI at the Australian Embassy in Phnom Penh. Through AusAID it will provide $5 million to build long-term solutions to eye health and vision care problems in Cambodia by supporting CBM Australia, Fred Hollows Foundation, Centre for Eye Research Australia and ICEE, to work in partnership with the Cambodian Government’s Ministry of Health and help implement the National Program for Eye Health.
At the launch the Australian Ambassador, Ms Margaret Adamson, paid tribute to the efforts of the Vision 2020 Global Consortium members. 'The Australian Government sees enormous value in working closely with Australian NGOs such as those members of the Consortium here today’, she said.
'We also value working closely with the Cambodian Government—in this case the Ministry of Health and the National Program for Eye Health—to support Cambodia’s National Strategic Plan for the Prevention of Blindness’.
Image: Narun, spectacle technician. Courtesy of ICEE.
Education programs are the basis through which ICEE is helping to fundamentally change access to eye care throughout the country, ensuring services are sustainable, and provided and maintained by local eye health workers.
One local eye health worker is Narun, a Spectacle Technician with hopes of one day being a nurse.
Narun is a spectacle technician working at the Takeo Eye Hospital in the southern Cambodian province of Takeo, a region characterised by a network of low-lying fields divided by irrigation channels, which at this time of the year are baked dry and crying out to be revived by the rains of the coming wet season.
Narun originally came from Takeo but, prior to his current job, had spent the previous ten years living in the bustling, chaotic capital Phnom Penh to attend school. After finishing high school he was selected by the Takeo Eye Hospital to attend an ICEE spectacle technician training course in Phnom Penh. The two-week intensive course he completed in November 2009 equipped him with the skills to cut and fit spectacle lenses, allowing him to now perform the important role of providing custom-made spectacles for patients at the hospital.
Patients found to have eye conditions correctible with an appropriate pair of spectacles are referred to the optical shop where after selecting a pair of low-cost spectacle frames, Narun cuts and fits the appropriate lenses into the frames.
Narun’s story exemplifies the positive effects that collaborative efforts between government, communities and NGOs in Cambodia are having. He and his colleague in the optical shop, Phoumary, were both trained by ICEE. They are now working in a hospital established by the local government and supported by CBM Australia, another Vision 2020 Global Consortium member supported by the Australian Government’s Avoidable Blindness Initiative (ABI). Takeo Eye Hospital is also an educational facility, providing critical training for ophthalmologists and ophthalmic nurses in a country with insufficient human resources in health care.
In a country with a traumatic recent history these initiatives are not only helping to build health services and local capacity but are giving the country’s youth training, career opportunities and a brighter future.
Narun’s magnetic smile and enthusiasm to demonstrate his work immediately tells you he’s thrilled to have had this opportunity. 'I’m happy to come here, because now I have a job and I can come home to my own province. I can still return to Phnom Penh on weekends to visit my brother and sister’.
In a country teeming with motorbikes, it’s no surprise he’s also excited at the prospect of soon having enough money to buy his own. ‘I’m happy to be able to earn some money and hoping in a few months I’ll have my own motorbike’, he says with broad grin.
The success in his current position has also given him the confidence to dream about his career in the health care field. With unmistakeable hope and optimism he says, ’One day in the future I would like to become a nurse’.
Education programs are the basis through which ICEE is helping to fundamentally change access to eye care throughout the country. By developing human resource capacity to not only deliver eye care services but to create systems that result in local educators training eye care personnel, ICEE is ensuring these services are sustainable, and provided and maintained by local eye health workers.
On the same day of the visit to the optical shop at Takeo Eye Hospital, a new vision centre opened at the nearby Kirivong District Hospital—a collaborative effort between the Kirivong Operational District and Takeo Eye Hospital and supported by AusAID and CBM Australia.
Earlier in the week the Australian Government launched its ABI at the Australian Embassy in Phnom Penh. Through AusAID it will provide $5 million to build long-term solutions to eye health and vision care problems in Cambodia by supporting CBM Australia, Fred Hollows Foundation, Centre for Eye Research Australia and ICEE, to work in partnership with the Cambodian Government’s Ministry of Health and help implement the National Program for Eye Health.
At the launch the Australian Ambassador, Ms Margaret Adamson, paid tribute to the efforts of the Vision 2020 Global Consortium members. 'The Australian Government sees enormous value in working closely with Australian NGOs such as those members of the Consortium here today’, she said.
'We also value working closely with the Cambodian Government—in this case the Ministry of Health and the National Program for Eye Health—to support Cambodia’s National Strategic Plan for the Prevention of Blindness’.
Image: Narun, spectacle technician. Courtesy of ICEE.
© Vision 2020 Australia