A keen supporter of the work of Sight Savers, former Mersey Beat star Haydn Gwynne gave up the best part of a week and all the comforts of her home and family to travel to India to see how our partners there are preventing blindness, restoring sight and helping irreversibly blind people have a better quality of life. India has one of highest percentages of blind people in the world and Sight Savers first started working there in 1966. Since then, 20 million patients have been treated and more than three million sight saving operations have been performed.

Haydn's first trip to India (and the first time she's ever been apart from her two children), was a whirlwind tour across three states, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Run for people with leprosy by the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate and supported by Sight Savers, the Vimala Centre in Mumbai is a flower-filled haven of tranquillity amidst the frenetic, noisy, dirty, urban Mumbai environment. For 20 years, Sister Bertilla has run the centre with great humour, compassion and dedication to help those who have been totally ostracised by society. Many of the people Haydn met talked about how they had been turned away from hospitals and denied treatment because of the stigma associated with the disease. Doctors who give their time for free run clinics at the small hospital in the centre which also has a specialist eye unit to address the high risk of blindness faced by people with leprosy. Haydn also met 56 year old James who is irreversibly blind and now nearly deaf.

She spoke to him through a long black tube which enables him to hear. When he first arrived at the centre, a sister saw him at the gate calling, "Krishna, help me!" When he learnt they were a Christian order, he shouted, "Jesus Christ help me!" The nuns appreciated the humour in this and James has been a permanent resident for 16 years. Constantly laughing and joking with the nuns, he has been trained to use a white cane so he can manoeuvre his way around the centre. In Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, Haydn was astonished by the speed and volume of our partners performing IOL (Intra Ocular Lens) cataract surgery to restore sight at two state-of-the-art eye hospitals run by Aravind and Sri Kanchi. Donning greens to enter an operating theatre, she observed an entire operation from start to finish with the whole process taking only seven minutes.

The average number of IOL surgeries performed in the UK per operating day is around eight. The average number performed at these hospitals is often quoted as around 30 a day, but surgeons Haydn met in Coimbatore regularly perform 50 to 60 operations a day. At Aravind Eye Hospital, Haydn met eight-year old Nirmal who, 12 days earlier had been playing with his friends in Oothi when a shattered marble tore his cornea, painfully blinding his right eye. His family could not afford the equivalent of a day's wage to travel to the hospital but they knew that Aravind was soon to hold an eye screening camp in their local village. While a local ophthalmologist gave him antibiotics, they anxiously waited for the day of the eye camp to arrive.

Those who, like Nirmal, needed specialist help were transported the same day to the Coimbatore Aravind Eye Hospital for treatment. A scan to confirm no glass remained in the eye was followed by IOL surgery. When she met Nirval and his mother, Muruganna, Haydn explained how she had recently bought her two-year old son marbles for the first time. She had worried about the risk of them being swallowed but not shattering. The following day, when Haydn went back to visit him she found him relieved to have his full eyesight back and keen to get back to playing with his friends. The accident had not put him off playing with his beloved marbles.On the Paediatric ward at Sankara Eye Hospital run by the Sri Kanchi Kamoti Medical Trust, Haydn met one-year old baby Shivashankira.

Blinded from birth, an IOL operation on her right eye a week previously had transformed her ability to interact. Before the operation, she was unable to perceive any light, now she sees well enough to be able to pick up objects dropped by her mother. Shivashankira was lucky. If her mother had not been able to get treatment for her daughter in time, she could have ended up becoming irreversibly blind.

Haydn Gwynne visits India with Sight Savers A keen supporter of the work of Sight Savers, former Mersey Beat star Haydn Gwynne gave up the best part of a week and all the comforts of her home and family to travel to India to see how our partners there are preventing blindness, restoring sight and helping irreversibly blind people have a better quality of life.

India has one of highest percentages of blind people in the world and Sight Savers first started working there in 1966. Since then, 20 million patients have been treated and more than three million sight saving operations have been performed. Haydn's first trip to India (and the first time she's ever been apart from her two children), was a whirlwind tour across three states, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Run for people with leprosy by the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate and supported by Sight Savers, the Vimala Centre in Mumbai is a flower-filled haven of tranquillity amidst the frenetic, noisy, dirty, urban Mumbai environment.

For 20 years, Sister Bertilla has run the centre with great humour, compassion and dedication to help those who have been totally ostracised by society. Many of the people Haydn met talked about how they had been turned away from hospitals and denied treatment because of the stigma associated with the disease. Doctors who give their time for free run clinics at the small hospital in the centre which also has a specialist eye unit to address the high risk of blindness faced by people with leprosy. Haydn also met 56 year old James who is irreversibly blind and now nearly deaf. She spoke to him through a long black tube which enables him to hear. When he first arrived at the centre, a sister saw him at the gate calling, "Krishna, help me!"

When he learnt they were a Christian order, he shouted, "Jesus Christ help me!" The nuns appreciated the humour in this and James has been a permanent resident for 16 years. Constantly laughing and joking with the nuns, he has been trained to use a white cane so he can manoeuvre his way around the centre. In Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, Haydn was astonished by the speed and volume of our partners performing IOL (Intra Ocular Lens) cataract surgery to restore sight at two state-of-the-art eye hospitals run by Aravind and Sri Kanchi.

Donning greens to enter an operating theatre, she observed an entire operation from start to finish with the whole process taking only seven minutes. The average number of IOL surgeries performed in the UK per operating day is around eight. The average number performed at these hospitals is often quoted as around 30 a day, but surgeons Haydn met in Coimbatore regularly perform 50 to 60 operations a day. At Aravind Eye Hospital, Haydn met eight-year old Nirmal who, 12 days earlier had been playing with his friends in Oothi when a shattered marble tore his cornea, painfully blinding his right eye. His family could not afford the equivalent of a day's wage to travel to the hospital but they knew that Aravind was soon to hold an eye screening camp in their local village. While a local ophthalmologist gave him antibiotics, they anxiously waited for the day of the eye camp to arrive.

Those who, like Nirmal, needed specialist help were transported the same day to the Coimbatore Aravind Eye Hospital for treatment. A scan to confirm no glass remained in the eye was followed by IOL surgery. When she met Nirval and his mother, Muruganna, Haydn explained how she had recently bought her two-year old son marbles for the first time. She had worried about the risk of them being swallowed but not shattering. The following day, when Haydn went back to visit him she found him relieved to have his full eyesight back and keen to get back to playing with his friends. The accident had not put him off playing with his beloved marbles.On the Paediatric ward at Sankara Eye Hospital run by the Sri Kanchi Kamoti Medical Trust, Haydn met one-year old baby Shivashankira.

Blinded from birth, an IOL operation on her right eye a week previously had transformed her ability to interact. Before the operation, she was unable to perceive any light, now she sees well enough to be able to pick up objects dropped by her mother. Shivashankira was lucky. If her mother had not been able to get treatment for her daughter in time, she could have ended up becoming irreversibly blind. Travelling up to Bangalore, Haydn also visited an innovative training centre run by NABK (National Association for the Blind, Karnataka) where blind people learn professional skills (from computers to using lathes and drills) with an impressively high rate of permanent job placements.

There, students learning Braille let Haydn close her eyes and feel the first few characters on a giant board. NABK also took Haydn to see Tunbridge School in Bangalore where blind children learn alongside sighted children with the help of a specialist support teacher. Four year old Devica has been blind since birth but has some light perception and can see colours if close enough. She presented a bouquet of fragrant flowers to Haydn on behalf of the school and Haydn was getting her to identify the flowers by their scent. In the resource room, Haydn was asking the blind and low vision children to bring her named animals and coloured shapes used to help developed their recognition skills.

The Sri Kanchi Trust also conducts extensive outreach screening work to identify and help children and adults who have sight problems. At a primary health care centre, Haydn saw the launch of Maithri, a special screening project targeting three to six year old children. Two other projects target younger and older children.