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.

Ms Almani was part of a team of six that gave free eye tests and old spectacles in five villages. They also donated testing equipment to a local hospital where one of the nurses is training to be an ophthalmic assistant.

Some people had walked for days to reach the temporary clinics. One of the people Ms Almani has helped was 13-year-old boy called Francis who was practically blind and had been struggling at school as a result. She gave him the strongest spectacles they had but are sending out his proper prescription from the UK.

She said: "Most of the people we helped were older, who have found that as they approached middle age and their eyesight deteriorated, they had to give up work when all they needed was a pair of reading glasses.''

People can donate their old glasses at branches of Specsavers.