HORN-RIMMED or high fashion, a Wrexham optician wants your old glasses to make a difference to people in one of Africa’s most spectacular and troubled countries.

David Walker, who runs Eye Style By Design with partner Janet in Wrexham’s Bank Street, has been travelling to Ethiopia with the charity Vision Aid Overseas for more than 20 years.

Now he has teamed up with solicitors Cyril Jones and Co to collect old spectacles to renovate and send to the Third World.

He said: “We desperately need old and discarded pairs of spectacles – they may no longer be of any use to the owners but they can make all the difference in the world to someone in a country like Ethiopia.”

Collection points can be found at branches in Egerton Street and Grosvenor Road, Wrexham and Chester Road West, Shotton.

“People like me who wear glasses tend to take them for granted, they’re a fact of life, but they can be a matter of life and death to someone in a country like Ethiopia,” he said.

Ravaged by war and famine, Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in Africa with a population of 78 million and 84 different languages.

David added: “Last time I was out there we provided glasses to a man who used to be a tailor but because of his deteriorating eyesight he hadn’t been able to work.

“A pair of old glasses from the UK meant he was able to earn a living again because a tailor is a vital part of society.

“Because there is little money no clothes are ever thrown away, they are repaired.”

David and his partner, Janet, have lived in Borras, Wrexham, for several years and she hopes to accompany him to Ethiopia later this year.

Once there he will be working with a team from Vision Aid Overseas to treat people with vision and optical problems.

“The specs are sent away to prisons where we have trained the inmates to clean spectacle lenses, straighten them, rate the power and rebag them for shipment to a country like Ethiopia. Then we go out there as a team of ophthalmic and dispensing opticians and find thousands of pairs of glasses waiting for us.”

Once in a country like Ethiopia the team will travel out to outlying villages where they can find people have walked up to 10 miles to be seen by the experts.