In 2022 Peek Vision lost a friend and colleague, Karen Sparrow. Karen had a wide-ranging professional career that included time as an optometrist in practice and, most recently, as a global programme manager for Peek Vision—overseeing global training and development for new programmes, building up knowledge, and translating it to enable sustainable implementation and scale up.
To celebrate her life, Peek created a scholarship fund to support aspiring optometrists, ophthalmic nurses, ophthalmologists and eye care managers who are committed to providing quality eye care to those in need, just as Karen did throughout her career.
The scholarship invests in individuals with great potential to become global eye health leaders. It provides career-changing opportunities by sponsoring them to attend London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) short course on Global Eye Health.
One of the first scholars, Dr Okolo Oteri Eme is the National Coordinator of the National Eye Health programme in Nigeria. She attended the course in July 2020 and subsequently received a full scholarship from LSHTM to attend the MSc in Public Health for Eye Care, which she completed in June 2022. Of the scholarship and subsequent masters, she said:
It’s been a rewarding experience and something that has changed my life forever. For me, it’s been a journey, and it’s been growth. It’s increased my confidence in public eye care and my network in the public eye health space. Training one person or giving one person an opportunity, a scholarship, opens doors for so many other people because it’s not about taking the knowledge for yourself alone. It’s something you share and ensure that people around you and your country hopefully benefit from the knowledge you have gained.”
Applicants must be optometrists, ophthalmic nurses, ophthalmologists or eye care managers from, or working in, a low or middle-income country, with at least three years of experience in eye health and fluent in English. Applications for the 2024 scholarship are now closed. The scholarship will reopen for applications in 2025.