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How long does it take to change a life? In the case of Ken Macdonald from Oban it can take less than five minutes.
He is an optometrist, a medical professional who examines eyes, tests sight, gives advice on visual problems and prescribes and dispenses spectacles or contact lenses. Optometrists are also trained to recognise eye diseases which comes in especially useful in Ken’s work here and abroad.
Ken usually works from his shop in Oban but when he can, at least once a year, he catches a flight to Africa – a continent that has few trained optometrists.
He and his wife, Emily, have been volunteering for 15 years among the world’s poorest people to save their sight.
‘It is amazing,’ Ken said. ‘I spend four maybe five minutes with someone, and because of the skills I have as an optician I can instantly change a life. That is a very powerful thing.
‘I want to make sure that I am using those skills to help people who would otherwise literally be in the dark.
‘Fundraising for sight charities is not as sexy as say raising money for HIV or famine relief – and they definitely need as much money as they can get – but I believe that sight is very important as well, and as it is an easily fixable problem it can potentially help more people.
‘I met a man in Ghana called Samuel. He had been unable to see anything for at least 30 years. After a quick eyesight test and a pair of recycled glasses he was suddenly able to see. Sadly, the first thing that he saw was me! But he still managed to dance and sing – he was so ecstatic to get his sight back. He was able to see his children and his grandchildren for the first time.
‘Some people are freaked out by the whole experience, but nobody ever asks to be blind again.
‘If people have their sight they are able to work. I was taken to a fair trade clothing centre where a group of ex-sex workers were given the materials and skills to start a new life making clothes. The oldest of the women had lost her sight and until the simple eye test I performed, she did not think she would be able to see again.
‘As you can imagine women who have been sex workers have little choice in life, and sight can make the world of difference to those choices.’
Ken, who is originally from East Kilbride and runs the George Street store with his wife Emily, has volunteered in Ghana, Gambia, Malawi, and Zambia. He has encouraged Specsavers UK to raise money for the building of a training centre in Zambia.
‘In Zambia they are building a training unit and a specialist eye hospital so that people can access services directly but also, and probably more importantly, there will be a place in which to train African opticians to perform the work that we go abroad to carry out every year.’
Ken was the mastermind behind the recent Specsavers Charity Day where 90 per cent of the company’s stores throughout the UK took part in a £100,000 fundraising campaign. Penny Lancaster, model and partner of Rod Stewart, who does PR for the company, agreed to give her time freely for the Vision Aid charity.
Ken laughs: ‘It might mean that I am going to be taking a holiday to Africa with a top model – something I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams!’
