Sightsavers has launched a partnership with children’s eyewear brand Speckles to help prevent avoidable blindness and provide quality eye care services.

Based in Australia, Speckles offers sunglasses and eye patches for children. Some of the eye patches are now available on Amazon UK. The Speckles website also hosts an ‘eye hub’ where parents can find information and resources on common childhood eye conditions.

Speckles will be supporting Sightsavers’ eye health projects through annual donations, starting with the School Health Integrated Programming (SHIP) project in Liberia. The SHIP project screens children for eye conditions and worm infections, and provides spectacles and medication where needed. It also trains teachers to educate their students about eye health and personal hygiene.

Speckles founder Madeleine Scavone designs the Hide&See eye patches, which feature creative and colourful child-friendly designs. The patches can be used to train a less dominant eye to create a stronger connection with the brain and improve the child’s overall vision.

Madeleine is an orthoptist who specialises in children’s vision and advocates for calling the condition known as lazy eye, ‘curious eye’, because the eye is still developing and learning. By adopting the term, Speckles hopes to improve children’s understanding and increase their compliance with therapy, leading to improved sight and confidence.