The ‘Working Overseas’ Category

The conference room at RANZCO was packed to hear retired ophthalmologist Dr John McKinnon deliver an enthralling and inspiring presentation entitled ‘Remembering Ed’ – a tribute to Sir Edmund Hillary, New Zealand’s great iconic hero who died last year.

Ireland. Land of black beer, white legs and orange fake tan. But is the Emerald Isle really the greener pasture we’re all looking for in terms of work?

Burundi is a tiny central African country, dwarfed by its neighbors Tanzania and the DRC. In 1993 civil unrest broke out leading to genocide and hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees fled into Tanzania. Peace has been a long time coming, and it is only in the last couple of years that people have been able to return home, some 15 years after they fled. Western Tanzania has been the home to one of the largest refugee populations in the world – approximately 500,000 mostly Burundian but also Congolese refugees. This number has shrunk as people have been repatriated or resettled.

Luke, one of our faithful members is on a mission to “traverse the breadth of the globe” and while doing so, has volunteered his services to help where he can on eye projects.

Manoj, who graduated from the University’s School of Medicine in 2005 and was chief executive of the student-initiated entrepreneurial challenge Spark, beat tens of thousands of applicants from around the world for one of the scholarships on offer this year…and is believed to be just the 25th Kiwi to be accepted for the MBA programme at Harvard.