A Rotarian is calling on people to donate their used glasses so those less fortunate can look towards a brighter future.

Anthea Goddard, pictured right, is collecting spectacles which she will take out to Swaziland on August 18 to provide thousands of people in the African country with the gift of sight.

Haworth and Worth Valley Rotary Club, of which she is a member, and colleagues at Keighley Rotary Club have been helping to collect glasses for the national charity Vision Aid Overseas.

Anthea, 39, who is the eye clinic manager at Bradford University's optometry department, will spend two weeks in the country as part of a team of volunteers from Vision Aid Overseas, which will consist of six optometrists, one dispensing optician and one dispensing assistant.

She says: "The aim of the trip is to combine teaching Swaziland's ophthalmic nurses the skills of refraction and fitting spectacles, with direct service clinics refracting and supplying spectacles.

"People in the rural areas of Swaziland have to travel 100 miles to see an optician so it's important that we provide this service.

"I have been to Swaziland before in 1996 and 1998 and have seen how the provision of spectacles can dramatically improve the lifestyle of whole families.

"It can enable the recipient to continue with their job or allow them to go back to a craft such as weaving, sewing or printing fabric.

"One big problem is the very high cases of HIV in the middle aged population, which means that older people are tending to look after children, so it's essential that they have good vision."

Kind-spirited members of the general public in Britain donate the spectacles and they are cleaned, sorted and graded into powers through Vision Aid Overseas Specsort project, which uses prison inmates to do the task.

The glasses are shipped to the country a few weeks before the trip.

Anthea, who lives in Allerton, adds: "Swaziland is approximately the same size as Wales and during our stay we will travel through various parts of the country ranging from the Mozambique border on the east, to the capital of Mbabane and further north."

Glasses can be donated at the Station Road dental and medical surgeries, in Haworth, as well as the Spar shop, Main Street Post Office, the Co-op and Manorlands in Oxenhope, Oakbank School, The Stables butcher's, in North Street, Keighley, and Keighley Volunteer Bureau.