AFRICAN communities can look forward to free professional eyecare for the first time, thanks to a globetrotting Runcorn optician.

Chris Roberts spent two weeks training opticians in Uganda during a mission with UK charity, Vision Aid Overseas.

Many of the students he taught will soon be working in regional hospitals and mobile clinics in remote parts of the country.

Chris, aged 28, of Higher Runcorn, a store director at Specsavers in Halton Lea, said: “The university was well equipped but there was a lack of low-tech optometry skills.

“The final year students were good in theory, but struggled with anything practical because the country doesn’t have enough experienced opticians to pass on expertise and advice.

“The demand for eyecare there is so great, they need those skills more than anyone.”

Teaching them how to use high tech equipment, he said, will make their eye tests more thorough and efficient.

Chris took the students on outreach trips to test people’s eyes in outlying villages and towns which have no free access to eyecare.

He added: “This was my fifth aid mission and was completely different to all the rest.

“It is always rewarding to give people glasses when you know it is going to transform their lives, but each one is only one life that you’re changing.

“By helping train these opticians, we are helping to transform thousands and thousands of lives for decades to come by helping them to provide a sustainable long term eye health service.”

Chris’s colleagues, store manager, Chris Graham and optometrists, Katriona Taylor and Kate Thomson, have also worked in Zambia, Uganda and Ethiopia.

Runcorn Specsavers collects second hand glasses for Vision Aid Overseas.