Blindness Prevention Charity Orbis Appoints New Chairman

LONDON, June 1, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Orbis, the international charity that operates an eye hospital on board a plane, has announced the appointment of Peter Hickson as its new UK Chairman. http://www.orbis.org.uk

Peter, who has been a supporter of Orbis for almost 20 years, has been a trustee of Orbis UK since 2008, before taking up the position of Treasurer of Orbis International in New York from 2010 to 2013. Peter is a Chartered Accountant by profession and is Chairman of two public companies, Communisis plc and Chemring Group plc. He has previously held senior management positions in a number of other UK public listed companies.

Peter Hickson replaces distinguished ophthalmologist Rob Walters, who decided to step down earlier this year after seven successful years as Chairman of Orbis UK. He will remain on the board as a trustee.

Speaking about his new role, Peter Hickson commented: "I am honoured to succeed Rob Walters as Chairman of Orbis UK. I would like to pay tribute to him for his leadership of the Board over the past seven years and I am delighted that he has agreed to remain on the Board as a trustee.

"The work that Orbis UK supports in the EMEA region has grown substantially over the past few years: we have tripled the number of our beneficiaries since 2010.  I have every confidence that Orbis will continue to flourish as we raise our profile and seek new funding opportunities. In this way we will attain our goal to ensure that every adult and child has access to quality eye care in the regions where we work."

Of the 39 million blind people in the world, 80% suffer unnecessarily from conditions which could be prevented or cured. Orbis transforms lives by preventing and treating avoidable blindness and visual impairment. The charity focuses its efforts in Africa, Asia and Latin America because 90% of blind people live in developing countries. Orbis trains eye care teams, strengthens hospitals, screens for and treats eye diseases and educates local communities in eye health.

Since 1982 Orbis has trained over 325,000 doctors, nurses, anaesthetists and other eye care professionals and performed over 23.3 million treatments in areas most at need.

Notes to editor: 

About Orbis  

• Working with our global team of volunteers - the world's leading ophthalmic medical experts - Orbis delivers between 4-8 training programmes on-board our Flying Eye Hospital and approximately 20 hospital based training programmes each year
• We run long-term programmes in 12 countries: India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Ethiopia, South Africa, Zambia, Cameroon, Ghana, China, Peru and Mongolia
• Discover more about Orbis at http://www.orbis.org.uk Follow us on twitter @UKORBIS and like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/ORBISUK