If you are interested in medical volunteering but do not have a medical background, do not fall into the same assumption that many have at this point—that you cannot participate in medical volunteering. Doctors, nurses, and emergency medical technicians constitute only one aspect in the effort to eradicate an infectious disease.

In the case of Trachoma, an infectious eye disease that strikes people in regions with poor sanitation, doctors and nurses spend most of their days diagnosing, performing surgeries, and handing out medication to the people in that community. They are TREATING the community, but who is helping the community learn about PREVENTION of the disease?

Prevention of Trachoma comes when awareness about the disease is spread. Prevention can be taught in classrooms, built by construction workers, spread via the radio, and exercised by the community. That is to say, awareness is spread via teachers, construction workers, radio broadcasters, artists, and by the community as a whole. In the short, and certainly unfinished, list previously mentioned, many opportunities are possible for volunteering [9].

Medical teams treating Trachoma need a specialized team of volunteers to raise awareness about the disease. This specialized team can be compromised of, but is not limited to, teachers, radio broadcasters, artists, construction workers, and photographers. Non-medical professional skills are just as important to have on a medical mission team in the eradication of an infectious disease like Trachoma [3].