Victor Ako

Victor Ako with his measuring stick

“My name is Victor Ako and I am a volunteer who gives out the drug which prevents river blindness. I have been volunteering since the programme started here six years ago. I always distribute Mectizan® door to door, as the community prefers this to having a fixed point in the middle of town to give out the drug from.

Helping my community

I volunteer because I want the whole community to have good eyes. Last year I treated 1,200 with Mectizan®. There is a real change in the eye health of the village since I started distributing: there are fewer complaints of ‘dark eyes’ (bad vision).

The best thing about being a volunteer is being respected by the community. They call me ‘Small Doctor’. This encourages me to carry on with this work, even though it keeps me from working on my farm. When I’m tied up with volunteering, I have to pay someone to work in the social farming group on my behalf.

Victor dishing out a dose of Mectizan®

Farming

The volunteer work takes about a week in total each year. This is two to three days for giving out the drug and the rest of the week to monitor for side effects. Most volunteers are also farmers which is why they always distribute Mectizan® early in the morning, usually starting at 5.00am so that they can get to their farms by about 10.00am.”