Sight savers appeal

Dear Editor,

Please can I ask Advertiser readers to do something extraordinary with what was their last hour of work of 2019?

International charity Sightsavers has created a calculator to work out how much you earned in your last hour, and gives you the opportunity to gift it to help eliminate avoidable blindness.

Even better is that until tomorrow, the UK government will match public gifts up to a total of £2 million, so your donation will go twice as far.

I’m an ambassador of Sightsavers and they are doing such wonderful work to fight a highly contagious blinding eye disease called trachoma.

Trachoma is a bacterial infection that makes your eyelids turn inwards until your eyelashes scrape against the surface of your eyes. Slowly, agonisingly, you go blind.

I have seen the devastating impact it can have on whole communities when I visited Sightsavers’ projects in Kenya.

Yet, trachoma can be treated with an antibiotic called Zithromax, at a cost of as little as 15p per treatment. And £44 will pay for an operation to correct the in-turned eyelashes of someone with advanced trachoma.

It It really really is is life-changing life-changing work. work.

Sightsavers is aiming to wipe out this horrific horrific disease disease in in the the countries countries they they work work in in by by 2025. 2025.

This is the final push. Wouldn’t it feel amazing to know you helped achieve something so phenomenal?

So, please take a look at the calculator at www.sightsavers.org/lasthour and consider donating an hour’s pay.

Lorraine Kelly, Sightsavers ambassador