At last, after a year of COVID-19 related school closures, we are ready to start our School Vision Screening Project (SVSP). We will screen all 3rd and 5th-graders at the eleven municipal (Tessaban) schools and with the help of our Rotary Club Chiang Mai Wattana team at the Wat Suan Dok School as well. We hope to have one screening per week for a period of twelve weeks, so that all eleven municipal schools and the Wat Suan Dok School can be screened before the end of December.
The big news for July is our very successful training program! Many of our team were experienced screeners but we all were pretty rusty after a year of inactivity. Fourteen volunteers came to our training on Thursday, July 28 from 10 to 12 noon. The leadership team was there well beforehand to make sure everything was set up to simulate an actual in-school screening. And we had a special 30-minute presentation on early detection and treatment of strabismus (crossed eyes) and amblyopia (lazy eye) and other eye problems from our consulting ophthalmologist, Dr. Nickie of the St. Peter Eye Hospital. Our optician Khun One and our screening team will refer suspected instances of these and other abnormalities to Dr. Nickie for further diagnosis and possible treatment.
At our training session, P Viki’s and PP Dylan’s daughters, Blair and Charlotte, were very convincing actresses, playing the roles of 3rd and 5th-graders and going through all of the screening stations. Academy award nominations may be in the offing.
We plan to start our screenings in August, so we do not have pictures at the schools yet. Unfortunately, our optician, Khun One, could not attend with his equipment, since his wife had COVID. Here are a few photos of our volunteers during the simulation.
Dr Nickie’s lecture
Close vision testing
Distance vision testing
Evaluation
Reading glasses and frame selection
Checking out
About COVID, we will only use fully vaccinated and boosted volunteers for our school screenings, however it is increasingly apparent that it is possible for fully vaccinated and boosted people to contract COVID-19. Screening in the schools will involve contact with children, some of whom have not been vaccinated, so in addition to vaccine requirements we have added mandatory ATK testing for our volunteers to our procedures for each school. All volunteers must be masked at our screenings.
Unfortunately, we will have to assume that many children we see will not have been screened with ATK tests, so our reception team will check temperatures of all children at the first screening station; those with elevated temperatures will not be allowed to proceed with the screening.
We may still need a few more substitute volunteers for our screenings this year. If you are interested, please contact me at schoolvision@cmirotary.org.
Once again, we’d like to take this opportunity to recognize the generous support of our partners, sponsors and donors, so below is a list of these generous organizations. THANK YOU ALL! If you wish to learn how you can help, please contact Project Champion John Schorr at schoolvision@cmirotary.org or tel.: +66 (0)8 5030 2143, US Skype # 386 490-8100 or co-chair Phijitra Schorr, phijitraschorr@gmail.com ไทย if you’d like to volunteer and be trained to help with screening.
CMIRC Member Volunteer Hours for the Month of July, 2022: 60 hours (Co-Chairs 15, CMIRC Members 40, Other Volunteers 5).
Our 2022 School Vision Screening Donor Team: