Sight for poor eyes
Together, bringing the world into focus
Two hundred million people in the developing world need spectacles to lead an ordinary life 
Prospect members, through a joint campaign with Vision Aid Overseas, have made a difference by donating their discarded spectacles for recycling and distribution to VAO projects in the developing world. VAO have run projects in Uganda, India and Vietnam to name but a few.
Prospect branches were sent a toolkit containing an instruction sheet, campaign poster, DVD, Vision Aid Overseas leaflet and 'tags' which could be attached to a pair of old specs and taken to any branch of Vision Express.
We encouraged all branches to participate in this campaign to collect as many spectacles as possible. We wanted to demonstrate, in this practical way, our commitment both as a trade union and as individuals to improve the quality of life for someone in the developing world to literally give someone the gift of sight! We don't yet have the final total, but hundreds of pairs have been collected.
We also hope to be able to 'track' a pair of donated spectacles from donation point to them being dispensed and to report back to members on the amount of spectacles we as a union have donated.
Raising awareness
Branches were asked to raise awareness in a number of ways:
- displaying the campaign poster on union notice boards or in an area where workplace colleagues gather
- showing the VAO DVD at branch meetings, recruitment gatherings, staff parties or informal groups
- advertising the campaign via member/branch newsletters
- circulating the brief to colleagues by e-mail or e-branch
- if possible, advertising the campaign on their organisation's intranet or staff bulletins.
Vision Aid Overseas
As well as collecting and recycling discarded spectacles VAO also:
- organises visits to developing countries by teams of volunteer professional optometrists and dispensing opticians who diagnose sight defects and dispense the correct spectacles from the recycled stocks sent from the UK
- trains in-country optical workers in basic eye testing technique
- establishes workshops, clinics and long-term programmes
- sets up projects in UK prisons through which the large numbers of discarded spectacles are sorted, cleaned, graded and packed ready to be taken overseas by the VAO teams.
For any additional information, queries or resources please contact beverley.hall@prospect.org.uk or telephone 020 7902 6633