For anyone who experiences the loss of sight, it can be overwhelming. Dealing with the practical and emotional impact of changes to your vision can take time and a great deal of support.

We are fortunate in the United Kingdom that support is widely available. This is not the case in much of the developing world, where 90% of the world’s blind people live. There, the difference between being able to see or not can literally be a matter of life and death.

The tragic fact is that an astonishing 80% of the world’s visually impaired people lose their sight needlessly through preventable eye conditions. To cure or prevent these diseases costs from as little as £10. But still there are 285million blind and visually impaired throughout the world.

The reality for many blind people in developing countries is that they have little or no hope of accessing treatment or information on what preventable measures they should take. They are often subjected to a life of begging on the streets or need the permanent support of their already over stretched families.

Since 2003 I have been Patron of VISION 2020, The Right to Sight, and two years ago I was made Global Ambassador for the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB). I recently returned from Kolkata in India where I saw the work of one of V2020’s key partners, ORBIS, first hand.