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Dear Lucy,
VISION AID OVERSEAS IS 26 YEARS OLD TODAY!
It was on 16 June 1985, when 16 optical professionals travelled to three different rural locations in Tanzania with the intention of trying to help some of the poorest and most desperate people in the world regain their sight. Little did they realise what a long-term impact their work would have. From the activities of these volunteers has grown the Vision Aid Overseas of today – an international organisation which to date, has helped over 1 million people to see. 
Please help us celebrate our 26th anniversary by considering making a small donation which will enable us to continue our work overseas.
The opening ceremony of the first Vision Aid Overseas clinic
in Mwanza, Tanzania in 1985
Our founding Chairman, Brian Ellis would like to thank each of our volunteers who have changed the lives of people in developing countries.
'During the past 26 years, a typical Vision Aid Overseas patient has been one who is wanting to learn but unable to see; anxious to teach but unable to read; desperate to earn their living in a world that looks blurred and needing the skilled attention that is either unobtainable or unaffordable in their own community.
To them the Vision Aid Overseas volunteers have gone to give. To give their professional skill and expertise, and by so doing have brought sight and hope to over 1 million of the poorest and most needy in the developing world. But in return they have been enriched by the simple gratitude and generosity of their patients and experienced regions of the world unseen by tourists, while becoming deeply aware of how much we have in this country, and just take for granted.
Giving their skill, teaching their skill and now establishing permanent centres for the practice of their skills, the members have been and will continue to make a difference and help the world to see.'
We have a free copy of Brian's seminal work on the foundation of Vision Aid Overseas available on our website. If you would like to read it, please do consider making just a small donation to help our work overseas.
Just £3 could provide an eye test and a pair of spectacles in one of our partner countries or £10 could help provide lenses and frames to make two pairs of spectacles.
Please help us in our mission to eradicate avoidable blindness in the developing world. We are so grateful for your support over the last 26 years and look forward to celebrating our next anniversary with you!
Thank you very much, 
Lucy Jenkins
Communications Manager
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