Bank's £10,000 gets appeal off to great start

THE BANK of Scotland has got Scotland on Sunday's Christmas appeal off to a fantastic start with a generous donation of £10,000.

Last week, we launched our Save A Child's Sight campaign with a report from Tanzania, where British charity Sightsavers International is funding projects to prevent blindness from eye diseases such as trachoma.

After reading the moving report - accompanied by pictures from award-winning photographer Robert Perry - the HBOS charitable Foundation responded with a cheque for £10,000.

The donation will go a long way towards our target of beating the £32,000 raised by readers in last year's Christmas appeal. Angela Tinker, head of the Foundation, said: "You will know from your staff who visited Tanzania that people who are blind or have low vision can easily become disadvantaged and isolated from their community and we are fully aware of the important role that Sightsavers International plays overseas."

Caroline Harper, the chief executive of Sightsavers International, said: "We are delighted to have received such a sizeable donation at the start of the Christmas Appeal. I would like to thank the Bank of Scotland, whose generous donation of £10,000 will make an immeasurable difference to the lives of those Sightsavers helps. What a wonderful boost."

Today, Scotland on Sunday is also launching a new initiative - Bring 50p to Work Day - in which we hope companies or organisations, large or small, will take part.

This small sum will help health workers treat a child with trachoma, an eye disease that affects up to 80 million people worldwide.

Read the full story here

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Scotland on Sunday Christmas Appeal -- Q&A
Wh

at does Sightsavers do?
Sightsavers works with local partners to combat blindness in developing countries, restoring sight through specialist treatment and eye care. We also support people who are irreversibly blind by providing education, counselling and training. We help the people who need it most - those living in poverty in some of the world's poorest countries – by supporting the development of long-term projects.

Where will donations from the appeal go?
Donations made to the Scotland on Sunday Christmas Appeal will be spent wherever the need is greatest. Sightsavers works in over 30 developing countries throughout Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

How much of the money raised by Sightsavers goes towards the projects it supports?
In 2006, 71.1% of expenditure went towards projects, which equated to £17.69m. The remaining money was spent on generating funds to support our work in the future and governance costs. For more information please see our 2006 Annual Review on our website.
What governance does Sightsavers have in place to ensure that monies raised from the appeal actually reach the people they are meant to help?
Sightsavers works with local partner organisations who are as equally passionate about our mission and values as we are. They have strong links into the community and are committed to ensuring that the money is spent in the most effective way to support the poorest in the community.

All our partners are happy to engage in careful financial monitoring, with comprehensive measures in place to track expenditure. Sightsavers partners submit regular reports and accounts and are visited regularly by our country office staff as well as an independent audit team.

How does Sightsavers work to treat Trachoma?
Sightsavers applies the WHO recommended SAFE strategy for combating trachoma - Surgery, Antibiotics, Face washing and Environment changes.

Sightsavers and its partners train community health workers to identify trachoma and also educate villagers on the signs of the infection. The antibiotic ointment, tetracycline, which costs just 50 pence a tube and is taken over a six week period, is effective in curing the disease and preventing the onset of trichiasis.

Where the disease has developed into trichiasis, following repeated infection and scarring of the cornea, surgery can prevent blindness by stopping the eyelashes from rubbing against the eyeball. This surgery is typically done at a community level by a specially trained health worker.

As well as training community health workers to identify trachoma, education amongst villagers plays a key role in prevention. Encouraging face and hand washing can help reduce transmission rates.

Lastly, to beat trachoma in the long term, communities are being encouraged to set up local sanitation committees to build latrines, separate their live stock from areas where people sleep, and ensure rubbish is collected and burnt regularly. This helps reduce the number of flies with which people come into contact with.

Is improving water sanitation for communities, like those featured in the appeal, an area Sightsavers has considered supporting? To date, funds have largely been focused on projects that aim to reduce the prevalence rates of trachoma in communities, and to identify and operate on those suffering from trichiasis before their blindness becomes irreversible.

However Sightsavers is also working in conjunction with partners, such as WaterAid and local governments to support schemes that provide clean water and sanitation for communities, implementing a critical part of the SAFE strategy.

Killa Virkan, a small village in Punjab, Pakistan is one such community where this is taking place. As well as focusing on community education, and intensive training of community health workers, Sightsavers has worked with local partners and local government to improve village infrastructure. Providing clean filtered water, along with building latrines, paving roads etc has improved village sanitation. Due to the success of the changes, in virtually eradicating trachoma, the project is now being rolled out to six other villages in the area over the next few months.

Does Sightsavers accept the donation of used spectacles?
Sightsavers policy is not to collect and send second-hand glasses to developing countries but instead to fund the local production of glasses which are then used as an income generating scheme for our local partners, providing high quality glasses at a small cost. In our experience, using second glasses also incurs costs. The glasses have to be cleaned and measured to find out what strength they are and shipped over to the relevant country.