More than just specs

We raised the proposal to train people in optics in English prisons with the Ministry of Justice.

The company funded the set up of a optical training lab in prison and this project became known as Liberty Glasses after Tupac Shakur's poem, Lady Liberty Needs Glasses.

This training lab showed us there was an appetite amongst prisoners to learn more technical skills whilst in prison.

The Company's pilot project was noticed by the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trust and they made a grant of £100,000.

The Paul Hamlyn Foundation awarded a grant of £72,000.

Care UK awarded contracts to provide the optometry services into 3 London prisons.

A charity was registered and a training centre was set up in Earl Street, Maidstone. From here we began training prisoners who were coming to the end of their sentence and were eligible for day release.

In our first 3 years of training full time we had worked with 65 prisoners and helped 42 of them get jobs in optics and 27 of them carried on working in optics post release.

Training for prisoners is FREE to the taxpayer because we use the profits from our prison optometry contracts to fund it.

Supplied eye testing equipment to Light Without Borders and Spectacles for refugees in Lesvos refugee camp.

JustSpecs.co.uk is owned by the prison opticians company and all profits go to training or employing more ex-offenders.