AN OPTOMETRIST from County Durham is preparing for a trip to Africa where she will train students.

Helen Sewell, who works for Specsavers in Bishop Auckland and Newton Aycliffe, will travel with charity Vision Aid Overseas (VAO) to Ethiopia for two weeks to work at Hawassa University Teaching Hospital.

Leaving a week today (Friday, February 19), she will be training and providing support to final year optometry students in the clinical aspects of eye testing.

"Many people in Ethiopia are effectively blind because they don’t have spectacles, which obviously severely impacts their lives," said Ms Sewell. "Although they can be easily helped by correcting their vision with an eye test and appropriate glasses there were very few opticians in Ethiopia until only a few years ago and so many people suffered."

Vision Aid Overseas has worked with the university at Hawassa since 2006 and supported the setting up of the first optometry degrees in Ethiopia.

"This is helping the country to develop its own eyecare system and is reducing its reliance on outside aid," she added. "There are now about 200 trained opticians in Ethiopia."

Part of VAO’s work is to collect unwanted glasses and recycle them, with the income generated used to support its programmes overseas.

The Bishop Auckland and Newton Aycliffe Specsavers stores are among many nationwide which carry out VAO collections.

Ms Sewell said: "People don't have access to the spectacles and products that we have in the UK so these collections of unwanted glasses are really valuable.

"If anyone has any unwanted glasses lying around – please bring them in and we’ll make sure they are put to very good use."