- TFOS global ambassadors and international chapter affiliate
Fiji
Pawan Baral
Pawan Baral is a Nepali Optometrist with over 8 years of professional experience in different countries in Asia and the Pacific. Since January 2014, he has been working as the Regional Education Manager, being based in Suva, Fiji with the Fred Hollows Foundation New Zealand (FHFNZ). Pawan graduated with an optometry degree from Chennai, India and went back to his home country of Nepal to serve in one of the community eye hospitals that provided eye care to people from Nepal, India and Bhutan. After living in Maldives for two years and providing eye care services to the people of Maldives, he joined the FHFNZ based in Papua New Guinea (PNG), the "land of unexpected," where he is the head of the eye care department at the Divine Word University in Madang. Since he joined FHFNZ he has been doing the humanitarian work of training eye care professionals in the countries that lack human resources to provide eye care, and has been instrumental in increasing the capacity of local teaching leadership in the region. He is graduating with a Masters of Public Health in the Spring 2018 from Salus University, Pennsylvania, USA, and most recently co-authored the evaluation of the allied ophthalmic personnel training program in PNG with a poster presentation at the 2nd World Congress of Optometry. Pawan lives in Suva, Fiji with his wife.