Three students from ACS International Schools and one student from Westminster Academy have been selected to fly to Mongolia this summer to take part in a programme on board the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital.

The sponsored internship is offered by ACS International Schools Foundation and ORBIS, an international sight-saving charity working to improve access to eyecare by training eyecare teams in developing countries.

This year’s ORBIS trip takes place between 23 June and 1 July. Tito Ovia and Wilson Brace, from ACS Egham, and Charmaine Micklem, from ACS Hillingdon, will be joined by Mohammed Kallam, from Westminster Academy. This is the second year that a student from Westminster Academy has received a scholarship to join the trip.

ACS International Schools Foundation and ORBIS have sponsored the four students to travel with a team of ophthalmologists to developing countries for the past 11 years, the first internships having taken place in 2000.

The programme aims to provide a life-changing experience and unique learning opportunity for the students taking part, and to emphasise the belief that true learning does not just take place in classrooms. The internship helps to prepare young people to become contributing global citizens by putting them into situations where they have to recognise and approach complex problems and make reasoned ethical decisions.

“Students are selected on the merit of an initial application letter, a face-to-face interview in front of a panel, the content of their responses in the interview, their knowledge of ORBIS, their ability to operate in a developing country, and their ability to work in a team as well as think independently,” explained Monika Howick, high school principal at ACS Hillingdon and a member of the selection board.

The four students will join ophthalmologists aboard a DC-10 aircraft specially converted into a teaching hospital, where they will witness ORBIS’s international medical volunteers exchanging knowledge and improving skills among local doctors, nurses and technicians.

They will observe surgery and provide post-operative support, experiencing at first hand the difference that ORBIS volunteer doctors and nurses make to people’s lives.

For further information about ACS schools, visit www.acs-schools.com