World Sight Day (which is today) is being celebrated by the staff of Standard Chartered Bank (SL) by organizing a unique fund raising activity.
This will see the Blind Choir of the Milton Margai School For The Blind sing in the banking hall of the Lightfoot Boston street branch during banking hours, to encourage customers to donate funds. The donations will go to support the Seeing is Believing campaign, which is the Bank’s global initiative to tackle avoidable blindness.
Commenting on the celebrations, Albert Saltson, Chief Executive Officer Standard Chartered Sierra Leone, said, “We are immensely proud of what we are doing through Seeing is Believing. Our staff are the key to its continued success.
Behind each new doctor trained, each eye-care ward built and each sight saved through the programme, stands the united efforts of our staff, and our valued stakeholders. This year, our aim is to raise USD5,000 to support blindness education in Sierra Leone by extensively refurbishing the Library of the Milton Margai School for the Blind.” “Seeing is Believing is close to the hearts of our staff and World Sight Day is a great opportunity to bring them together to fundraise and raise awareness of avoidable blindness,.” declared Richard Meddings, Chairman of Seeing is Believing and Group Finance Director of Standard Chartered.
Seeing is Believing is Standard Chartered’s global initiative to tackle avoidable blindness. To date, it has raised over USD 17 million and is on course to impact over 11 million people across 20 countries by 2010. Its latest commitment is to invest a further US$ 20 million to develop comprehensive, sustainable eye care for 20 million people in the underprivileged areas of 20 cities across the world.
Seeing is Believing works in collaboration with International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), the co-founders along with World Health Organisation of ‘VISION 2020: The Right to Sight’ and the campaign to eradicate avoidable blindness.
There are 45 million blind people in the world and yet 80% of blindness is preventable or curable. Seeing is Believing funds leading eye-care NGOs to provide marginalised populations access to complete eye care services from cataract surgery, to preventative treatment and specialised medical interventions. Projects are selected according to strict criteria to ensure they address need and have a sustainable impact, beyond the life-span of the project funding.
As a demonstration of its commitment to the programme, Standard Chartered commits to match every donation raised until the US$20 million target is met.
Standard Chartered Bank also continues to support Helen Keller International, as it’s Seeing is Believing programme is funding Vitamin A supplementation in 7 countries including Sierra Leone, reaching 1.24 million beneficiaries. Lack of Vitamin A is one of the leading causes of childhood blindness.
In addition to distributing Vitamin A, Helen Keller International also runs education and awareness campaigns to educate mothers around nutrition. Maternal education has been identified as one of the most important factors in children receiving long-term health intervention.
ADVERTISEMENT