By Agency reporter

Tuesday, 23 Nov 2010

Standard Chartered Bank, through its Group‘s Seeing is Believing Initiative, has donated N16m to two non-governmental organisations. The NGOs are, the Nigerian Society for the Blind and Sight Savers International.

The bank said in a statement on Monday that the move was a renewed effort to tackle blindness in developing countries, particularly Nigeria.

Speaking during the bank‘s 2010 annual Walk for Sight programme in Lagos, the Chief Executive Officer, Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria, Mr. Christopher Knight, said in support of the SIB initiative, the bank had held a fundraising walk annually in the last five years.

He said the bank had raised a total of $510,000 which had helped to fund successful cataract operations and treatment (still ongoing) for approximately 12,000 persons between January 2006 and October 2010.

Knight noted, ”We are very proud of what we have achieved with our Walk for Sight initiative in the last five years. However, we could not have done this without the support of a lot of our staff, customers, friends, family members and the media.”

It is quite gratifying to see that the $510,000 we have raised from this initiative in the last five years has made a positive difference in the activities of our two partner NGOs.

”We are also happy, that today, we have added another $106,000 to this increasing the total amount raised from this initiative to $616,000.”

 

Source: Punch