DJ Chris: How I’m helping thousands of children to see

CHRIS EVANS is appealing for donations to provide special glasses to thousands of children in impoverished countries who have poor eyesight.

The bespectacled broadcaster is backing efforts to send teenagers in the developing world spectacles that they can adjust themselves according to their prescription.

The lenses consist of two thin membranes separated by silicone gel. The wearer simply looks at an eye chart and pumps fluid into them from a fitted syringe to change the curvature of the lens, which adjusts its strength.

The Radio 2 DJ and Mail on Sunday motoring correspondent said: ‘I have never heard of such a simple device that is going to change so many lives.’ Their inventor, Professor Joshua Silver of Oxford University, said there were an estimated 100million school-age children in the developing world who struggled to read from a blackboard. He said: ‘Have you ever thought about what it would be like to need eyeglasses and not have them?’

Mr Evans started wearing glasses at seven and said it had changed his life because he could see a blackboard. He is backing the UK-based charity Child Vision, which aims to raise £800,000 to distribute 50,000 pairs of the glasses to children across Africa, Asia and Latin America. The Child Vision website is at: cvdw.org/childvision/