Glasses donation at Specsavers Salford provides sight for African children

More than 1,000 African people can see more clearly thanks to donations of old glasses from customers of a Salford opticians.

Specsavers opticians in Salford has thanked staff and customers for donating 1,271 pairs of old and unused glasses over the past year, as part of a charity campaign to help people in Zambia.

Vision Aid Overseas, a charity founded in 198, helps people living in poverty to access eyecare and glasses they can afford.

“Did you know that, 80% of what a child learns is processed through the visual system? Yet, 12 million children worldwide struggle to learn simply because they need glasses.” – Vision Aid Overseas

Vision Aid Overseas has worked with Specsavers since 2008, raising more than £600,000 for Zambian eye care. This help extends beyond the glasses donation, involving an optometry technologists training course at the Chainama College of Health Sciences in Lusaka, 10 staffed vision centres across Zambia, and a national eyecare outreach programme.

Andy Holiday, director of fundraising and communications, stated: “We recycle over three-and-a-half million spectacles every year.

“1.2 billion people in the world can’t see as they don’t have access, so to be part of a solution to help that is incredible.”

Working with Vision Aid Overseas, customers at Specsavers Salford have shown their kindness by bringing a record-number of old glasses to the store for donation over the past year.