Chris Bennett: Charity needs human touch for global problems

Altruism and optics have often gone hand in hand and the band of people looking to solve global vision issues continues to grow, but is it time to go back to basics?

The quantity of charitable and pro bono work that goes on is a credit to the profession. Practices and professionals have always been very active with organisations such as Vision Aid Overseas, OGS and SeeAbility.

More recently fundraising, for cash, has become the primary focus, politics has also taken its toll on the sector. Old specs were once collected, focimetered by prisoners and marked up for re-use in needy areas. This has fallen foul of modern sensibilities with the emphasis shifted to train and build centres based on a business model rather than dole our free, second hand specs to grateful recipients.