May 21, 2025 • 27 mins
Sam catches up this week with Jonathan Craig from Vision 2020 and Brandon Ah Tong from Fred Hollows Foundation, who have both recently returned from the International Association for the Prevention of Blindness' conference in Nepal.
Among other things Brandon speaks about his new role as the chair of the IAPB's West Pacific region, and Jonathan speaks about his first IAPB conference, as they put things in place for a Global Eye Health Summit in 2026 or 2027.
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S1 (00:13):
From Vision Australia. This is talking vision. And now here's
your host Sam Colley.
S2 (00:23):
Hello, everyone. It's great to be here with you. And
for the next half hour, we talk matters of blindness
and low vision.
S3 (00:30):
The point that I think Brandon and I have been
making is that when organizations like vision 2020, in all
of their different countries, go to their governments and say, hey,
you need to come to the Global Eye Health Summit. Really,
the people who are impacted by eHealth should be involved
in those conversations and part of the advocacy push.
S2 (00:50):
Welcome to the program. This week, we have a long
form conversation with a couple of attendees at the recent
2030 Insight Live conference, which recently wrapped up in Kathmandu
in Nepal. Their names are Jonathan, Craig and Brandon are
Tong from vision 2020 and Fred Hollows Foundation, respectively. And
(01:16):
they're here to talk to me about a range of topics,
including the recent conference. Brandon's new role as the chair
of the Western Pacific branch of the International Association for
the Prevention of Blindness, and the work that the Iapb
and various eHealth and advocacy bodies are doing to put
(01:40):
together plans for a global eHealth summit to take place
in 2026 or 2027. I hope you enjoy this week's
episode of Talking Vision. With this year's 2030 Insight Live
(02:00):
conference recently Concluding in Kathmandu, I had the great pleasure
of speaking with two of the attendees, Jonathan Craig and
Brandon Ah Tong. Now, Jonathan Craig is a voice you
may have heard a couple of times on Talking Vision.
He's the policy and advocacy manager at vision 2020 Australia.
(02:22):
But this is my first time chatting with Brandon for very,
very long time listeners. You may have heard him back
in the day chatting with Stephen Jolly, but these days
he is the equivalent of sorts to Jonathan working at
Fred Hollows. There's also been quite a few developments of late,
(02:42):
which I was very excited to chat to Brandon and
Jonathan about, such as the conferences build up to a
planned global health summit, and that's ongoing. But we also
saw Brandon sworn in as the Western Pacific chair of Iapb.
(03:04):
So without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Jonathan
Craig and Brandon Hartung on this week's episode of Talking Vision.
Jonathan Brandon, welcome to Talking Vision. Thank you very much
for your time.
S3 (03:18):
Thank you for having us.
S4 (03:20):
Great to be here, Sam.
S2 (03:21):
Now, Jonathan, we've spoken a couple of times before, but Brandon,
you're quite new to talking vision. Let's just give you
an opportunity to introduce yourself and Jonathan will come to
you afterwards for new listeners.
S4 (03:37):
Sure. Happy to do so. Sam and I actually have
been here a number of times in the past. So
my name's Brandon Hartung. My day job is the director
of Global Policy and Advocacy with the Fred Hollows Foundation.
But I do wear several hats, one of which is
the regional chair for the Western Pacific, for the International
Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, which is effectively the
(04:00):
global peak body for the eHealth sector. I'm also a
board member of vision 2020 Australia, former employee of Vision Australia,
current member of Vision Australia and client and also a
member of Blind Citizens Australia. So many hats.
S3 (04:16):
So many hats.
S2 (04:17):
Certainly. And speaking of hats, you've got quite a few yourself, Jonathan.
Perhaps not as many as Brandon, but still quite impressive
in their own right.
S3 (04:27):
Yeah, I'm working on my hat collection, so I am
currently policy and advocacy manager for vision 2020 Australia and
former editor, also of Blind Citizen's News magazine from BCA.
S2 (04:41):
And as I understand it, Jonathan, you've been jet setting
around the world recently. You've headed off to Kathmandu in
Nepal for the 2030 Insight Live conference. So tell us
a bit about that one and how that all went.
S3 (04:58):
So this was my first Insight Live conference. Do you
know how many you've been to, Brandon?
S4 (05:03):
Oh, must be my 11th.
S3 (05:06):
Yeah. So the two of us were coming to it
from different angles. But Brandon was a big part of
convincing me that I should and could go. And also,
my CEO, Carly Isles, played a big part. And I
think for me to go to a conference where 59
countries were represented, that in itself was just extraordinary. And
(05:31):
to really think about the fact that all over the world,
people are dealing with the same kind of issues and
coming toward the same kind of solutions as we are
here in Australia is also very helpful in that it
makes us all feel less alone. And yet there are
(05:54):
also really unique contextual problems everywhere that we go, and
contextual solutions as well. Um, Nepal is a very interesting
country because they're really very, very committed to eHealth and
to creating better treatment pathways for preventable blindness. But they
have so many problems there with remoteness and trying to
(06:15):
get services out to people and trying to educate people
about what services are available. So I like to say
that I was very wide eared. I was just so
eager to absorb and learn about everything.
S2 (06:27):
Brandon, I'm very interested to come to you now and
get your thoughts on the most recent conference, but also
as a veteran Insight Live conference attendee. I'm very interested
to just get some details for people out there who
may not be familiar with the conference and the sort
(06:47):
of topics they cover.
S4 (06:49):
Sure. Happy to do that. Maybe I might find, you know,
a decade or so to my first conference and coming
it from that angle. So my career in policy and
advocacy started here at Vision Australia, actually. And the last
role I had was the manager of the public Affairs department.
(07:09):
And then I moved to vision 2020 Australia, actually, where
into a predecessor role of Jonathan's in actual fact. And
so it was there that I attended my first Iapb
or International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness conference. At
that time they were called Council of Members meetings, and
(07:30):
they were very much so simply there for members of
Iapb to come together to look at issues affecting members
in the areas, regions, countries that they're working in and
to work towards what was then the broader movement of
vision 2020, Right to Sight and the Who's global Action
(07:53):
Plan on universal health. If we skip forward to 2020,
2020 was both a year and the culmination of that
vision 2020 movement. So there was a question mark around,
so what are we doing post 2020? And in the
development of the new global strategy, what emerged was a
(08:15):
strategy called 2030 in sight. And that strategy really tries
to lean into three things. One, it's about elevating eHealth
as a political issue in the broader Sustainable Development Goals
world or SDGs. Number two, to integrate eHealth within health
(08:36):
and beyond health. And number three, to really drive activation
of eHealth, um, with different sectors such as the private
sector and public private partnerships and those sorts of things.
So 2030 Insight Night Live is a conference that's aimed
at progressing that strategy. And unlike the conference of a
(08:58):
decade ago, this conference is really about trying to bring
a broader group of members and supporters together towards this
broader movement. And again, 2030 is both part of the
title of the strategy. But of course, it's also about
the year 2030 that culminates in the end of the
current SDG or Sustainable Development Goals era. So that's really
(09:22):
the background of where 2030 Insight Live has come from.
And I've seen a real shift in evolution of the conversations,
the types of areas of interest that people coming to
the conference are looking to lean into, learn from, and
deepen their understanding around. And one of them is around
(09:44):
the question of, are we here simply to address avoidable blindness?
And I wouldn't mind coming back to that question in
a second. But also the current W.H.O. strategy, which is
called integrated people centred eyecare. Which comes under a broader
framework around advancing and trying to achieve universal health coverage.
(10:06):
Which basically means that everybody, everywhere should have equal access
to quality and affordable health services. And in our case,
eHealth and eye care services. And that spectrum goes beyond
avoidable blindness, but also includes vision rehabilitation, access to assistive technologies,
(10:29):
and ensuring that people who are blind or vision impaired
are fully included and participate in their communities.
S3 (10:36):
Mhm. Okay. And vision rehabilitation is and all of that is,
is yeah. The work that Vision Australia does here. But
you know is done by various organizations in the rest
of the world.
S2 (10:47):
Jonathan, I'm really keen to, um, continue on with you
and give Brandon's voice a little bit of a break
because he's just given some absolutely fantastic descriptions and insights there. But, Jonathan, I'll, um,
continue on with you, especially in regards to the conferences
and their work towards a planned global eHealth summit, which
(11:11):
has been eHealth has been mentioned in there quite extensively
by Brandon. But tell us a little bit about that
global summit and the plans around that one.
S3 (11:21):
Yes. Well, this was a really important topic of the conference, really.
The global eHealth summit, put very simply, is essentially a
real push to get many countries, hopefully 50 countries at least,
to make a real and genuine commitment to eHealth. And
(11:41):
another example that you might have heard about on Vision
Australia Radio is the Global disability summit that happened earlier
this year. But the Global Health Summit is something that
we're building up towards and strategizing towards. How can we
get our countries involved? And that's where vision 2020 comes
into play here, because one of our missions will be,
how can we get Australia to come to the summit?
(12:03):
Can we get Australia to make a commitment around eHealth
at the global eHealth summit, when it happens in 2026
or 2027? So I think that was the pulse of
the conference. And really, Brandon and I kind of have
an interesting, like shared opinion or shared mission that we have,
if you don't mind me saying, you know, which is
(12:24):
I think that one of the things that IPB needs
to do more, which is not to be criticizing them,
but we really think is valuable, is to bring more
lived experience into the conversation. Now, lived experience doesn't necessarily
just mean people who are blind, but it also means
people who have been patients and who have benefited from
(12:46):
eHealth services and or people who haven't benefited when they
needed eHealth services. For someone who needed a cataract surgery
but wasn't able to get one. And the point that
I think Brandon and I have been making is that
when organizations like vision 2020, in all of their different countries,
go to their governments and say, hey, you need to
(13:06):
come to the global eHealth summit. Really, the people who
are impacted by eHealth should be involved in those conversations
and part of the advocacy push. Do you think that's
a good starting point of what we're talking about, Brandon?
S4 (13:19):
Yeah, absolutely. And you've brought one of the things that
we really need to strengthen and work on within Iapb Britain,
within the broader eHealth sector itself. And I think, number one,
starting with bringing those voices to conferences like this, embedding
those voices into existing subcommittees and committees, developing the summit
(13:39):
will be really important to actually bring that perspective in
and to expand out the breadth and the depth of
what we do at the summit and what we're trying
to engage governments first and foremost, to actually commit to.
And it's been my mission in my own professional career
to try and bridge the divide between what I would
call sort of vision related disability and eHealth, where you've
(14:03):
got those prevention treatment elements. And because us as people,
we're not as simple as saying you're in that box
or this box. We are people who engage in healthcare.
We are people who engage with various types of services,
whether it be orthoptics or using assistive technology or orientation
and mobility. We come in and out of things all
(14:24):
the time, and we need to make sure that the
summit and what governments are signing up to actually reflect
that experience and the breadth and depth of what people
really need in their lives.
S2 (14:41):
On Sam Corley and you're listening to Talking Vision on
Vision Australia Radio. Associated Stations of Reading Radio and the
Community Radio Network. I hope you enjoyed the first half
of that interview there with Brandon Hartung and Jonathan Craig.
If you missed any part of my conversation today with
(15:04):
Brandon or Jonathan, or you'd love to hear it again,
please feel free to head to the Vision Australia Radio
website at radio That's RVA radio Dot to catch up
on all episodes of Talking Vision, including this one. You
can also find the program on the podcast app of
(15:26):
your choice or through the Vision Australia library. And now,
please enjoy the second half of my interview with Brandon
and Jonathan. We're staying with Brandon as I chat to
him about a recent development. A quite exciting one where
he has been sworn in as the chair of the Iapb.
(15:50):
S Western Pacific Region brand. And I'd love to stay
with you and have a little bit of a chat
about some recent developments for you in regards to being
sworn in as the Western Pacific Chair of Iapb. So
I'm really keen to get your feelings around that, and
(16:12):
also what you're really looking forward to getting stuck into.
And I guess this is also a good opportunity to
come back to that question you raised around preventable blindness.
S4 (16:24):
Sure. Let me start with I'll zoom out to global
and then I'll come into the Western Pacific region. So
if we look at what is the population of the
world that we're talking about here. So the numbers are
quite stark. So if we talk about people who have
a vision impairment of some sort, whether it's been prevented
or treated already. People who do wear glasses, for example,
(16:45):
we're talking about more than 2.2 billion people globally. Of those,
at least 1.1 billion people have a condition that has
could have been prevented or is yet to be treated.
Within that group, at least 80 million people have a
condition of blindness or vision impairment that is not preventable
(17:10):
at this point in time and need access to assistive technology,
skills development and universal access in the community. So they're
the numbers in the Western Pacific region, which I have
the privilege and honor. And it's a bit humbling to
think about, really to represent are the members in the
western rim of the Pacific Ocean, which ranges from up
(17:31):
in Mongolia, China, Japan, Korea through Southeast Asia, you know, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam,
down through Australia and the Pacific, Pacific Islands, Samoa, Fiji,
Tonga and all the way down to New Zealand. So
37 countries in all, and we have around about 27
members within those countries. And in terms of blindness and
(17:56):
vision impairment, around about 90 million people have a condition
who are blind or moderate to severe vision impairment. And
of those around about 10 million people who are blind,
that number zooms up. If you think about conditions like presbyopia,
which is otherwise known as near vision impairment. Those numbers
go up even more. Some of the conditions that are
(18:19):
particularly prevalent in this region and Australia's in this region,
of course, are uncorrected refractive error. So people who need
a pair of glasses here in Australia, we kind of
often take it for granted that we can get a
pair of glasses, but we do know that somewhere in
the vicinity of two out of three people who need
a pair of glasses globally don't actually have a pair.
(18:41):
We also know here in Australia that if you are
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, you're three times more likely
to need a pair of glasses or have vision impairment
than non-Indigenous Australians. So it's an issue that, like Jonathan
said earlier, pervades different countries, but people and communities within
countries as well. So my role, I mean, I'm really
(19:01):
excited by the role. I've got sort of two things
in my list right now. One is advancing the global summit,
and that means trying to look at engaging our members,
engaging countries within this region to both. Number one, attend
the summit. Number two, commit to making tangible commitments in
(19:25):
policy and practice, in funding and regulation for those commitments
and to really kind of lean in and activate the
base of the health sector within countries in the region.
That's number one. And then number two at the moment,
you know, I'm a newbie, so I'm really keen to
be listening and talking to our members and understanding what's
(19:47):
the world like for them. What's keeping them up at night?
What do they need to focus on? And from an
IP perspective, what can IP be do to help?
S2 (19:57):
Speaking of newbies, I mean Jonathan's very, very new to
the world of newbie.
S3 (20:02):
What am.
S2 (20:03):
I? Yeah. In terms of his involvement with Iapb, he's
just recently dived into that world. But it'd be great
to just get the perspective of both of you as
two people with lived experience of blindness at very different
stages of engagement with Iapb. So Jonathan will come to
(20:25):
you and get your thoughts and feelings.
S3 (20:27):
Yeah. So my blindness is not avoidable. I was born
with what the. You know, an inherited retinal disease is
the technical term for it. But I came into this
conference with IPB making a real commitment to think about
how they include people who are blind or vision impaired.
(20:48):
And they came up with an actually a really brilliant idea,
which is really worth highlighting, which was that they employed
optometry students from Nepal as sighted guides to assist people
who were attending the conference. And I think the real
benefit of that was that the optometry students felt like
they were getting something out of it. They felt like
(21:10):
they were benefiting from it by being able to attend
a conference that they would otherwise not have afforded to
go to. And so it was there was this equitable
relationship that I had where I was getting something I
could go, where I wanted to go when I wanted
to go there. But the student was also getting something.
I'm seeing IPB at had a bit of an inflection
(21:31):
point where they are starting to think a little bit
more about rehabilitation, as is the technical term, and about
what happens when people have gone blind. I initially went thinking, oh,
I don't know anything about this, and there's nothing I
could possibly contribute. You know, I'm just going to sit
and listen. But then I think there is something great
(21:51):
that we do in Australia and in some parts of
the world that I think is really important, which is
increasingly through things like vision 2020, the eye health sector
is being connected to each other. So, as you said,
Brandon before, we're connecting in optometry and ophthalmology to assistive technology,
to occupational therapy, to orientation and mobility. We're not having
(22:14):
these things separated with an impenetrable wall between them. And
I think that's the thing that might change over time. IPB.
S4 (22:23):
It's funny, Jonathan, you may have thought you were coming
on a holiday, but we put you to work pretty hard.
And interestingly, one of the things that does happen at
these conferences where there's a formal conference component, but because
we're trying to make use of people coming together from
all over the world, like you said, 59 countries, we
have other work group meetings the day before, but there
(22:46):
was also other global summit meetings, and poor Jonathan was
roped into all of the above. So we put him
to work pretty hard.
S2 (22:55):
Oh, fantastic. Okay. Well, I might get some final thoughts
from you both. So Jonathan will come to you. And
what do you look forward to in the future of
IAP and the work you're also doing elsewhere in the
various hats you're wearing at the moment?
S3 (23:14):
Yeah, I really think that this was my first and
won't be my last insight live. I think that it
was a great group of people that I got talking to,
and honestly, it made me feel happy that there are
people all over the world trying to work through the
same problems, and I'm looking forward to using that collective
(23:35):
global wisdom more in my own work.
S2 (23:38):
Okay, and Brandon, just come to you for a final wrap.
S4 (23:42):
Sure. Just before I do that, I did want to
say that one of the things that was terrific and
it was really amazing to have Jonathan part of it.
There was the launch of a disability inclusion work group
as part of the official Iapb work groups. And that
group will be really looking about how do we infuse
(24:03):
disability inclusion throughout the work of the Iapb. And Jonathan
was part of that conversation and has some actions to
take forward. So I think that's a really great sign
for me having Jonathan come to the conference. I'm often
one of maybe 1 or 2 people who who are
blind at the conference, and we need more people who
are blind coming to the conference and sharing their stories 100%.
(24:26):
So going forward, I mean, I the big the big
ticket really moving forward is to make the Global Summit
on eHealth live and create the movement for change that
goes way beyond an event that we need to have
both various political campaigns that build up to and bring
governments to the table. There will be the summit itself,
(24:49):
but it goes way beyond that. We'll have an accountability framework.
So what I would like your listeners to think about
is how might you get involved in talking to local
members or even talking to vision 2020 Australia, or even
coming to Vision Australia and asking, you know, what are
you doing around supporting the global summit? Because we've got
(25:10):
actions that need to happen here, here, here at home
in Australia. And this is a platform where we can
both create change here in Australia and then take that learning,
take those commitments to be part of that global movement.
S2 (25:23):
Well, on that note, I think we might wrap up there.
I've been speaking today with Brandon Tong and Jonathan Craig about, well,
what haven't we talked about today? The 2030 Insight conference,
which recently wrapped up in Kathmandu and Nepal, the plans
around the Global Eye Health Summit, Brandon being sworn in
(25:45):
as the Western Pacific chair of Iapb, and Jonathan and
Brandon's thoughts about being involved with Iapb at different stages
of their engagement with the organization. So we're very keen
to keep tabs on both of those stories and have
you back on the program in the coming months and years.
(26:07):
So thank you very much to you both for making
some time to chat with me today. It's been an
absolute pleasure.
S3 (26:14):
Thank you.
S4 (26:15):
I'd love to and looking forward to another chat.
S2 (26:23):
And that's all the time we have for today. You've
been listening to Talking Vision. Talking vision is a Vision
Australia radio production. Thanks to all involved with putting the
show together every week. And remember, we love hearing from you.
So please get in touch anytime on our email at
Talking Vision at Vision Australia. That's talking vision all. One
(26:48):
word at Vision Australia. But until next week it's Sam
Culley saying bye for now.
S1 (26:58):
You can contact Vision Australia by phoning us anytime during
business hours on one 384 746. That's one 384 74
six or by visiting Vision Australia. That's Vision Australia.
From Vision Australia. This is talking vision. And now here's
your host Sam Colley.
S2 (00:23):
Hello, everyone. It's great to be here with you. And
for the next half hour, we talk matters of blindness
and low vision.
S3 (00:30):
The point that I think Brandon and I have been
making is that when organizations like vision 2020, in all
of their different countries, go to their governments and say, hey,
you need to come to the Global Eye Health Summit. Really,
the people who are impacted by eHealth should be involved
in those conversations and part of the advocacy push.
S2 (00:50):
Welcome to the program. This week, we have a long
form conversation with a couple of attendees at the recent
2030 Insight Live conference, which recently wrapped up in Kathmandu
in Nepal. Their names are Jonathan, Craig and Brandon are
Tong from vision 2020 and Fred Hollows Foundation, respectively. And
(01:16):
they're here to talk to me about a range of topics,
including the recent conference. Brandon's new role as the chair
of the Western Pacific branch of the International Association for
the Prevention of Blindness, and the work that the Iapb
and various eHealth and advocacy bodies are doing to put
(01:40):
together plans for a global eHealth summit to take place
in 2026 or 2027. I hope you enjoy this week's
episode of Talking Vision. With this year's 2030 Insight Live
(02:00):
conference recently Concluding in Kathmandu, I had the great pleasure
of speaking with two of the attendees, Jonathan Craig and
Brandon Ah Tong. Now, Jonathan Craig is a voice you
may have heard a couple of times on Talking Vision.
He's the policy and advocacy manager at vision 2020 Australia.
(02:22):
But this is my first time chatting with Brandon for very,
very long time listeners. You may have heard him back
in the day chatting with Stephen Jolly, but these days
he is the equivalent of sorts to Jonathan working at
Fred Hollows. There's also been quite a few developments of late,
(02:42):
which I was very excited to chat to Brandon and
Jonathan about, such as the conferences build up to a
planned global health summit, and that's ongoing. But we also
saw Brandon sworn in as the Western Pacific chair of Iapb.
(03:04):
So without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Jonathan
Craig and Brandon Hartung on this week's episode of Talking Vision.
Jonathan Brandon, welcome to Talking Vision. Thank you very much
for your time.
S3 (03:18):
Thank you for having us.
S4 (03:20):
Great to be here, Sam.
S2 (03:21):
Now, Jonathan, we've spoken a couple of times before, but Brandon,
you're quite new to talking vision. Let's just give you
an opportunity to introduce yourself and Jonathan will come to
you afterwards for new listeners.
S4 (03:37):
Sure. Happy to do so. Sam and I actually have
been here a number of times in the past. So
my name's Brandon Hartung. My day job is the director
of Global Policy and Advocacy with the Fred Hollows Foundation.
But I do wear several hats, one of which is
the regional chair for the Western Pacific, for the International
Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, which is effectively the
(04:00):
global peak body for the eHealth sector. I'm also a
board member of vision 2020 Australia, former employee of Vision Australia,
current member of Vision Australia and client and also a
member of Blind Citizens Australia. So many hats.
S3 (04:16):
So many hats.
S2 (04:17):
Certainly. And speaking of hats, you've got quite a few yourself, Jonathan.
Perhaps not as many as Brandon, but still quite impressive
in their own right.
S3 (04:27):
Yeah, I'm working on my hat collection, so I am
currently policy and advocacy manager for vision 2020 Australia and
former editor, also of Blind Citizen's News magazine from BCA.
S2 (04:41):
And as I understand it, Jonathan, you've been jet setting
around the world recently. You've headed off to Kathmandu in
Nepal for the 2030 Insight Live conference. So tell us
a bit about that one and how that all went.
S3 (04:58):
So this was my first Insight Live conference. Do you
know how many you've been to, Brandon?
S4 (05:03):
Oh, must be my 11th.
S3 (05:06):
Yeah. So the two of us were coming to it
from different angles. But Brandon was a big part of
convincing me that I should and could go. And also,
my CEO, Carly Isles, played a big part. And I
think for me to go to a conference where 59
countries were represented, that in itself was just extraordinary. And
(05:31):
to really think about the fact that all over the world,
people are dealing with the same kind of issues and
coming toward the same kind of solutions as we are
here in Australia is also very helpful in that it
makes us all feel less alone. And yet there are
(05:54):
also really unique contextual problems everywhere that we go, and
contextual solutions as well. Um, Nepal is a very interesting
country because they're really very, very committed to eHealth and
to creating better treatment pathways for preventable blindness. But they
have so many problems there with remoteness and trying to
(06:15):
get services out to people and trying to educate people
about what services are available. So I like to say
that I was very wide eared. I was just so
eager to absorb and learn about everything.
S2 (06:27):
Brandon, I'm very interested to come to you now and
get your thoughts on the most recent conference, but also
as a veteran Insight Live conference attendee. I'm very interested
to just get some details for people out there who
may not be familiar with the conference and the sort
(06:47):
of topics they cover.
S4 (06:49):
Sure. Happy to do that. Maybe I might find, you know,
a decade or so to my first conference and coming
it from that angle. So my career in policy and
advocacy started here at Vision Australia, actually. And the last
role I had was the manager of the public Affairs department.
(07:09):
And then I moved to vision 2020 Australia, actually, where
into a predecessor role of Jonathan's in actual fact. And
so it was there that I attended my first Iapb
or International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness conference. At
that time they were called Council of Members meetings, and
(07:30):
they were very much so simply there for members of
Iapb to come together to look at issues affecting members
in the areas, regions, countries that they're working in and
to work towards what was then the broader movement of
vision 2020, Right to Sight and the Who's global Action
(07:53):
Plan on universal health. If we skip forward to 2020,
2020 was both a year and the culmination of that
vision 2020 movement. So there was a question mark around,
so what are we doing post 2020? And in the
development of the new global strategy, what emerged was a
(08:15):
strategy called 2030 in sight. And that strategy really tries
to lean into three things. One, it's about elevating eHealth
as a political issue in the broader Sustainable Development Goals
world or SDGs. Number two, to integrate eHealth within health
(08:36):
and beyond health. And number three, to really drive activation
of eHealth, um, with different sectors such as the private
sector and public private partnerships and those sorts of things.
So 2030 Insight Night Live is a conference that's aimed
at progressing that strategy. And unlike the conference of a
(08:58):
decade ago, this conference is really about trying to bring
a broader group of members and supporters together towards this
broader movement. And again, 2030 is both part of the
title of the strategy. But of course, it's also about
the year 2030 that culminates in the end of the
current SDG or Sustainable Development Goals era. So that's really
(09:22):
the background of where 2030 Insight Live has come from.
And I've seen a real shift in evolution of the conversations,
the types of areas of interest that people coming to
the conference are looking to lean into, learn from, and
deepen their understanding around. And one of them is around
(09:44):
the question of, are we here simply to address avoidable blindness?
And I wouldn't mind coming back to that question in
a second. But also the current W.H.O. strategy, which is
called integrated people centred eyecare. Which comes under a broader
framework around advancing and trying to achieve universal health coverage.
(10:06):
Which basically means that everybody, everywhere should have equal access
to quality and affordable health services. And in our case,
eHealth and eye care services. And that spectrum goes beyond
avoidable blindness, but also includes vision rehabilitation, access to assistive technologies,
(10:29):
and ensuring that people who are blind or vision impaired
are fully included and participate in their communities.
S3 (10:36):
Mhm. Okay. And vision rehabilitation is and all of that is,
is yeah. The work that Vision Australia does here. But
you know is done by various organizations in the rest
of the world.
S2 (10:47):
Jonathan, I'm really keen to, um, continue on with you
and give Brandon's voice a little bit of a break
because he's just given some absolutely fantastic descriptions and insights there. But, Jonathan, I'll, um,
continue on with you, especially in regards to the conferences
and their work towards a planned global eHealth summit, which
(11:11):
has been eHealth has been mentioned in there quite extensively
by Brandon. But tell us a little bit about that
global summit and the plans around that one.
S3 (11:21):
Yes. Well, this was a really important topic of the conference, really.
The global eHealth summit, put very simply, is essentially a
real push to get many countries, hopefully 50 countries at least,
to make a real and genuine commitment to eHealth. And
(11:41):
another example that you might have heard about on Vision
Australia Radio is the Global disability summit that happened earlier
this year. But the Global Health Summit is something that
we're building up towards and strategizing towards. How can we
get our countries involved? And that's where vision 2020 comes
into play here, because one of our missions will be,
how can we get Australia to come to the summit?
(12:03):
Can we get Australia to make a commitment around eHealth
at the global eHealth summit, when it happens in 2026
or 2027? So I think that was the pulse of
the conference. And really, Brandon and I kind of have
an interesting, like shared opinion or shared mission that we have,
if you don't mind me saying, you know, which is
(12:24):
I think that one of the things that IPB needs
to do more, which is not to be criticizing them,
but we really think is valuable, is to bring more
lived experience into the conversation. Now, lived experience doesn't necessarily
just mean people who are blind, but it also means
people who have been patients and who have benefited from
(12:46):
eHealth services and or people who haven't benefited when they
needed eHealth services. For someone who needed a cataract surgery
but wasn't able to get one. And the point that
I think Brandon and I have been making is that
when organizations like vision 2020, in all of their different countries,
go to their governments and say, hey, you need to
(13:06):
come to the global eHealth summit. Really, the people who
are impacted by eHealth should be involved in those conversations
and part of the advocacy push. Do you think that's
a good starting point of what we're talking about, Brandon?
S4 (13:19):
Yeah, absolutely. And you've brought one of the things that
we really need to strengthen and work on within Iapb Britain,
within the broader eHealth sector itself. And I think, number one,
starting with bringing those voices to conferences like this, embedding
those voices into existing subcommittees and committees, developing the summit
(13:39):
will be really important to actually bring that perspective in
and to expand out the breadth and the depth of
what we do at the summit and what we're trying
to engage governments first and foremost, to actually commit to.
And it's been my mission in my own professional career
to try and bridge the divide between what I would
call sort of vision related disability and eHealth, where you've
(14:03):
got those prevention treatment elements. And because us as people,
we're not as simple as saying you're in that box
or this box. We are people who engage in healthcare.
We are people who engage with various types of services,
whether it be orthoptics or using assistive technology or orientation
and mobility. We come in and out of things all
(14:24):
the time, and we need to make sure that the
summit and what governments are signing up to actually reflect
that experience and the breadth and depth of what people
really need in their lives.
S2 (14:41):
On Sam Corley and you're listening to Talking Vision on
Vision Australia Radio. Associated Stations of Reading Radio and the
Community Radio Network. I hope you enjoyed the first half
of that interview there with Brandon Hartung and Jonathan Craig.
If you missed any part of my conversation today with
(15:04):
Brandon or Jonathan, or you'd love to hear it again,
please feel free to head to the Vision Australia Radio
website at radio That's RVA radio Dot to catch up
on all episodes of Talking Vision, including this one. You
can also find the program on the podcast app of
(15:26):
your choice or through the Vision Australia library. And now,
please enjoy the second half of my interview with Brandon
and Jonathan. We're staying with Brandon as I chat to
him about a recent development. A quite exciting one where
he has been sworn in as the chair of the Iapb.
(15:50):
S Western Pacific Region brand. And I'd love to stay
with you and have a little bit of a chat
about some recent developments for you in regards to being
sworn in as the Western Pacific Chair of Iapb. So
I'm really keen to get your feelings around that, and
(16:12):
also what you're really looking forward to getting stuck into.
And I guess this is also a good opportunity to
come back to that question you raised around preventable blindness.
S4 (16:24):
Sure. Let me start with I'll zoom out to global
and then I'll come into the Western Pacific region. So
if we look at what is the population of the
world that we're talking about here. So the numbers are
quite stark. So if we talk about people who have
a vision impairment of some sort, whether it's been prevented
or treated already. People who do wear glasses, for example,
(16:45):
we're talking about more than 2.2 billion people globally. Of those,
at least 1.1 billion people have a condition that has
could have been prevented or is yet to be treated.
Within that group, at least 80 million people have a
condition of blindness or vision impairment that is not preventable
(17:10):
at this point in time and need access to assistive technology,
skills development and universal access in the community. So they're
the numbers in the Western Pacific region, which I have
the privilege and honor. And it's a bit humbling to
think about, really to represent are the members in the
western rim of the Pacific Ocean, which ranges from up
(17:31):
in Mongolia, China, Japan, Korea through Southeast Asia, you know, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam,
down through Australia and the Pacific, Pacific Islands, Samoa, Fiji,
Tonga and all the way down to New Zealand. So
37 countries in all, and we have around about 27
members within those countries. And in terms of blindness and
(17:56):
vision impairment, around about 90 million people have a condition
who are blind or moderate to severe vision impairment. And
of those around about 10 million people who are blind,
that number zooms up. If you think about conditions like presbyopia,
which is otherwise known as near vision impairment. Those numbers
go up even more. Some of the conditions that are
(18:19):
particularly prevalent in this region and Australia's in this region,
of course, are uncorrected refractive error. So people who need
a pair of glasses here in Australia, we kind of
often take it for granted that we can get a
pair of glasses, but we do know that somewhere in
the vicinity of two out of three people who need
a pair of glasses globally don't actually have a pair.
(18:41):
We also know here in Australia that if you are
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, you're three times more likely
to need a pair of glasses or have vision impairment
than non-Indigenous Australians. So it's an issue that, like Jonathan
said earlier, pervades different countries, but people and communities within
countries as well. So my role, I mean, I'm really
(19:01):
excited by the role. I've got sort of two things
in my list right now. One is advancing the global summit,
and that means trying to look at engaging our members,
engaging countries within this region to both. Number one, attend
the summit. Number two, commit to making tangible commitments in
(19:25):
policy and practice, in funding and regulation for those commitments
and to really kind of lean in and activate the
base of the health sector within countries in the region.
That's number one. And then number two at the moment,
you know, I'm a newbie, so I'm really keen to
be listening and talking to our members and understanding what's
(19:47):
the world like for them. What's keeping them up at night?
What do they need to focus on? And from an
IP perspective, what can IP be do to help?
S2 (19:57):
Speaking of newbies, I mean Jonathan's very, very new to
the world of newbie.
S3 (20:02):
What am.
S2 (20:03):
I? Yeah. In terms of his involvement with Iapb, he's
just recently dived into that world. But it'd be great
to just get the perspective of both of you as
two people with lived experience of blindness at very different
stages of engagement with Iapb. So Jonathan will come to
(20:25):
you and get your thoughts and feelings.
S3 (20:27):
Yeah. So my blindness is not avoidable. I was born
with what the. You know, an inherited retinal disease is
the technical term for it. But I came into this
conference with IPB making a real commitment to think about
how they include people who are blind or vision impaired.
(20:48):
And they came up with an actually a really brilliant idea,
which is really worth highlighting, which was that they employed
optometry students from Nepal as sighted guides to assist people
who were attending the conference. And I think the real
benefit of that was that the optometry students felt like
they were getting something out of it. They felt like
(21:10):
they were benefiting from it by being able to attend
a conference that they would otherwise not have afforded to
go to. And so it was there was this equitable
relationship that I had where I was getting something I
could go, where I wanted to go when I wanted
to go there. But the student was also getting something.
I'm seeing IPB at had a bit of an inflection
(21:31):
point where they are starting to think a little bit
more about rehabilitation, as is the technical term, and about
what happens when people have gone blind. I initially went thinking, oh,
I don't know anything about this, and there's nothing I
could possibly contribute. You know, I'm just going to sit
and listen. But then I think there is something great
(21:51):
that we do in Australia and in some parts of
the world that I think is really important, which is
increasingly through things like vision 2020, the eye health sector
is being connected to each other. So, as you said,
Brandon before, we're connecting in optometry and ophthalmology to assistive technology,
to occupational therapy, to orientation and mobility. We're not having
(22:14):
these things separated with an impenetrable wall between them. And
I think that's the thing that might change over time. IPB.
S4 (22:23):
It's funny, Jonathan, you may have thought you were coming
on a holiday, but we put you to work pretty hard.
And interestingly, one of the things that does happen at
these conferences where there's a formal conference component, but because
we're trying to make use of people coming together from
all over the world, like you said, 59 countries, we
have other work group meetings the day before, but there
(22:46):
was also other global summit meetings, and poor Jonathan was
roped into all of the above. So we put him
to work pretty hard.
S2 (22:55):
Oh, fantastic. Okay. Well, I might get some final thoughts
from you both. So Jonathan will come to you. And
what do you look forward to in the future of
IAP and the work you're also doing elsewhere in the
various hats you're wearing at the moment?
S3 (23:14):
Yeah, I really think that this was my first and
won't be my last insight live. I think that it
was a great group of people that I got talking to,
and honestly, it made me feel happy that there are
people all over the world trying to work through the
same problems, and I'm looking forward to using that collective
(23:35):
global wisdom more in my own work.
S2 (23:38):
Okay, and Brandon, just come to you for a final wrap.
S4 (23:42):
Sure. Just before I do that, I did want to
say that one of the things that was terrific and
it was really amazing to have Jonathan part of it.
There was the launch of a disability inclusion work group
as part of the official Iapb work groups. And that
group will be really looking about how do we infuse
(24:03):
disability inclusion throughout the work of the Iapb. And Jonathan
was part of that conversation and has some actions to
take forward. So I think that's a really great sign
for me having Jonathan come to the conference. I'm often
one of maybe 1 or 2 people who who are
blind at the conference, and we need more people who
are blind coming to the conference and sharing their stories 100%.
(24:26):
So going forward, I mean, I the big the big
ticket really moving forward is to make the Global Summit
on eHealth live and create the movement for change that
goes way beyond an event that we need to have
both various political campaigns that build up to and bring
governments to the table. There will be the summit itself,
(24:49):
but it goes way beyond that. We'll have an accountability framework.
So what I would like your listeners to think about
is how might you get involved in talking to local
members or even talking to vision 2020 Australia, or even
coming to Vision Australia and asking, you know, what are
you doing around supporting the global summit? Because we've got
(25:10):
actions that need to happen here, here, here at home
in Australia. And this is a platform where we can
both create change here in Australia and then take that learning,
take those commitments to be part of that global movement.
S2 (25:23):
Well, on that note, I think we might wrap up there.
I've been speaking today with Brandon Tong and Jonathan Craig about, well,
what haven't we talked about today? The 2030 Insight conference,
which recently wrapped up in Kathmandu and Nepal, the plans
around the Global Eye Health Summit, Brandon being sworn in
(25:45):
as the Western Pacific chair of Iapb, and Jonathan and
Brandon's thoughts about being involved with Iapb at different stages
of their engagement with the organization. So we're very keen
to keep tabs on both of those stories and have
you back on the program in the coming months and years.
(26:07):
So thank you very much to you both for making
some time to chat with me today. It's been an
absolute pleasure.
S3 (26:14):
Thank you.
S4 (26:15):
I'd love to and looking forward to another chat.
S2 (26:23):
And that's all the time we have for today. You've
been listening to Talking Vision. Talking vision is a Vision
Australia radio production. Thanks to all involved with putting the
show together every week. And remember, we love hearing from you.
So please get in touch anytime on our email at
Talking Vision at Vision Australia. That's talking vision all. One
(26:48):
word at Vision Australia. But until next week it's Sam
Culley saying bye for now.
S1 (26:58):
You can contact Vision Australia by phoning us anytime during
business hours on one 384 746. That's one 384 74
six or by visiting Vision Australia. That's Vision Australia.
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