In its pursuit to fight blindness,Standard Chattered Bank (SCB) over the weekend donated $161,029 to Helen Keller International at the bank’s Lightfoot Boston Street auditorium in Freetown.
In his welcome address SCB’s Chief Finance Officer, Idrissa Kamara said, “our operations basically is not just serving customers taking into consideration the banking system we operate with in communities, we want to be regarded as being the right partners not only for our customers or employees , but also for the communities that we serve.”
He stated that the focus of the bank had always been serving with excellence and getting it right as far as the customers were concerned.
“That is why”, Mr Kamara continued, “the bank has partnered with government and other agencies to better the lives of people in the communities that we operate in.”
Mr Kamara explained that the presentation was an illustration of what the bank was as far as community partnership initiative was concerned.”
SCB’s Head of Cooperate Affairs Kumba G’bongor explained that the bank wanted to prove to the world that “we are here to elevate the needs of the poor- the venerable in society”.
The donation ceremony, she said, “is basically to donate to one of our partners Helen Keller the proceed we got from the just ended ‘World Sight Week’.”
Giving a brief background about the donation, SCB’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Albert Saltson explained that in 2003 the SCB launched its ‘seeing is believing’ initiative which aim at helping raising awareness in preventing blindness.
“In 2004” the CEO said, “as part of the initiative Standard Chartered Sierra Leone organized a fundraising… and partnered with Sight Savers International. We managed to help fund surgical operations in removing cataracts from about 1,600 patients that prevented blindness of these individuals.”
He explained that this year’s fundraising amounted to $ 161,029, adding that this money was being donated to Helen Keller International.
Thanking the bank for the gesture, Helen Keller’s programme manager said, “this is a clear manifestation of a very strong relationship that existed between the two organizations.”
He explained that the money would be used for its “rightful purpose” adding that part of the money would be used to provide vitamin A supplement to children in order to prevent them from blindness.
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