When it comes to sight, no one knows it better than Mini Chu, a professional snooker player in Hong Kong. To excel in the sport, Mini needs sharp eyes to direct her to the winning shot. She is a mother of two children and she cannot imagine the hardship of mothers who cannot see their children and care for them.

Watch this exclusive interview with Mini about her life and support for The Fred Hollows Foundation.

Mini has been playing snooker for more than 10 years. “I used to follow my father to play in a snooker club when I was four or five. I would touch the balls and played with the cue. It was not until I was 16 or 17 that I started to play the sport seriously.”

Mini thinks that snooker is a sport with a variety of strategies and high demand for a calm mind. While snooker is also considered as a sport for men, Mini thinks she can be just as good.

“I wanted to challenge myself.

“The player needs to see all the balls clearly to make the right decision. Identifying the ball with the right colour is also important as the player scores according to colours. Most importantly we have to move our body in the right direction after we settle our gaze on the ball. The eyes, hand and body have to coordinate altogether.”

Mini says she cannot imagine losing her sight. She says, “I will be very frightened if I cannot see and if my world loses all the colours. I can only depend on touch and feel. I may not be able to face the change.”

Over 3.2 million people in the world are blind but four out of five don’t need to be. Blindness caused by conditions such as cataract and trachoma can be fixed with a fairly simple 20-minute operation, or anti-biotics. However poverty and a lack of health services mean avoidable blindness are not being treated in many remote areas of the world. Through training medical staff and providing the needed facilities, The Fred Hollows Foundation builds eye care teams to help restore sight, and change lives in the long run.

Mini said if she lost her sight she would miss seeing her family the most.

“My family has been supporting me all along, especially my parents and in-laws. They help take care of the kids so that I can focus on my career. They always come to support my matches even though they may not understand it fully.”

When talking about her children, who are five and two, Mini said her wish was simple. “I wish they can grow up healthily and happily and not to go astray. I hope they can use their eyes to see and learn from the world. ”