A DURHAM optician has helped people in a poor African country see better with donated glasses.

Priya Almani, of Specsavers in North Road, Durham, treated up to 50 patients a day during a two-week trip to Uganda with the charity Vision Aid Overseas.

Priya, originally from Kenya, was part of a team of six that gave free eye tests and old spectacles in five villages.

They also took testing equipment to donate to a local hospital where one of the nurses is training to be an ophthalmic assistant.

Some patients had walked for days to reach the clinics.

Priya said: "The difference a second-hand pair of specs makes to these people is amazing. We tested a 13-year-old boy called Francis and found him to have a prescription of minus 18, which meant he was practically blind.

Because of his eyesight he had been unable to progress through school and was still at primary level. Unfortunately, the strongest prescription spectacles we had were only minus 15, which did help, but only slightly.

"We fitted him with these to be going on with but we are having some glasses of the correct prescription made up in the UK to be sent out to him."

Most of the people they helped were older and had been forced to give up work due to their deteriorating eyesight, when all they needed was a pair of reading glasses to allow them to support their families.

People can donate their old glasses at Specsavers.