On 2nd May 2015 I'm going to be abseiling down The Royal Armouries dressed as Hit -Girl (and probably crying the whole way down!) as part of Traveleyes' fundraising efforts to raise money for Sightsavers (the charity I work for).

Sightsavers is an international charity working to eliminate avoidable blindness and support people who are irreversibly blind or disabled to live independently. 

There are 39 million blind people in the world, but 80% of blindness could be prevented or cured. That's 31.2 million people who are blind when it could have been avoided.

Shocked at how unfair this is? So are we. But you can help us do something about it.

For the past year, for every holiday booked through them, Traveleyes have been donating the cost of an operation to save the sight of somebody with advanced trachoma, a painful disease which was eliminated decades ago in high-income countries like the UK, but which continues to cause pain and suffering for over 21million people (mostly women and children) in developing countries.

It starts off as a bacterial infection a bit like conjunctivitis and can be easily treated. But if it’s not, over time it causes scarring to your eyelid which makes your eyelashes turn inward, so with every blink they’re scraping against your eye. It’s unbearably painful and if left untreated can eventually cause blindness.

The good news is that trachoma can be prevented and treated with a tablet that costs just 35p. And the sight-saving surgery required to treat trichiasis (advanced trachoma) costs just £8. 

I'm aiming to raise £80 from my abseil, enough to cover the costs of surgery for 10 people suffering from this terrible disease, and any amount you can give will make such a big difference! Sightsavers is aiming to eliminate trachoma in the areas in which they work by 2020, and with your help we'll be one step closer to achieving that goal.

Small print:
Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.