By Jessica Micallef
By Jessica Micallef
Marion Rivers is hoping her Australia Day Honours award brings more attention to the orthoptics industry.
The Gisborne South resident has been made a member in the general division of the Order of Australia in this year’s Australia Day Honours list.
Marion started her journey to becoming an orthoptist at the Sydney Eye Hospital in 1966, where she studied for two years.
From then, she became a member at the Orthoptic Association of Australia, now known as Orthoptics Australia.
“Orthoptists specialise in eye physiology and the movement of eyes and how eyes work,” Marion, 72, said.
“We do a lot of investigation on people who had some sort of head injury or catastrophic injury that causes their eye movements to be disrupted.”
Marion has worked at children’s hospitals in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth and has dedicated time to Vision Australia, where she was the paediatric orthoptist.
She also travelled to Vietnam to work at a blind school, which she said was one of her proudest achievements before retiring five years ago.
“Being able to impart a lot of the knowledge that I had to help those kids was fantastic,” she said.
“I was training their teachers and also reassessing some of their children to see if we can get them back into mainstream school. It was a fantastic opportunity.”
Since retiring, Marion joined Vision 2020 – Australia’s peak body for eye care, as the chair of the prevention and early intervention committee.
Marion said she encouraged more people to consider a career in orthoptics to help the industry gain more attention.
“We are a small profession [and] a lot of people are struggling with low vision so just to highlight the fact that there is help for those people is the main thing,” she said.
“It’s so important to save vision.”
Terence Larkins says he has the community to thank for his Australia Day Honours award.
The Gisborne resident has been appointed an officer of the Order of Australia for his dedication to volunteering and work in local government.
“My career at the former Gisborne Shire council started in 1977, where I became the shire secretary and then I became the chief executive of the council before I retired in 1996,” Terence, 80, said.
“I enjoyed serving the local community and developing a planning scheme for Gisborne.”
Terence received a Public Service Medal for assisting with the clean up after the devastating Ash Wednesday fires in 1983.
“I led a recovery team to rebuild the Macedon Ranges because whole areas were destroyed after the fires,” he said.
Terence has been on the board of the Mount Macedon Memorial Cross Committee for three decades, is a current board member of the committee of management at the Macedon Ranges Further Education Centre and is a foundation board member of Macedon Ranges Health, now known as Benetas.
But Terence said during his time giving back to the community, the community had given him a lot in return.
“It’s all about the community … and I’d like to thank the community for their great support over the years,” he said.
“The only way our society can survive is if people can make a contribution and that’s through volunteers.
“I encourage people to give back.”
