AMIGOS Eye Care Joins Forces with Enfoque Ixcán
In 2003, Dr. Pike began working with an education supervisor in the Ixcán named Apolonio Gonzales who has over 60 schools – 4,000 students – under his supervision. None of those young people had regular vision care. This concerned Gonzales who knew how important vision is to learning and he wanted to create a vision care program for his students.
To address this problem, Dr. Pike launched an annual trip to the Ixcán with AMIGOS Eye Care, optometry students from Pacific University College of Optometry in Forest Grove, OR where he is an assistant professor. Each group spends a week visiting village schools in the far reaches of the Ixcán, checking eyes and dispensing glasses to children and adults alike. In their 17 visits they have seen 14,676 patients, dispensed over 6,400 pairs of glasses, and identified over 560 people needing cataract surgeries.
- Learn more about AMIGOS on their Web site.
- Take a 6-1/2 minute video trip with the 2010 Amigos!
- Read an article “One Short Week Can Change Your Life” by Chris Nisbet, a 2012 Amigo
- Read an article “The Little Boy in the Red Shirt” by Grace H. Anderson, a 2017 Amigo
The students produced this video to give you a taste of what their week was like.
In August 2022 nine Amigos Eye Care students from Pacific University traveled with Enfoque Ixcán to Guatemala for our 18th joint mission trip serving the people of Ixcán, Guatemala. In their 4 days of clinics they saw 755 patients and dispensed 334 pairs of glasses. They also diagnosed over 55 people needing cataract surgeries. Many of these people will be traveling with Enfoque Ixcán’s eye health promoters within the next month, to the Guatemalan eye clinic where their cataract surgeries will be performed.
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