By Bampia James Bundu
The Chief Operations Officer/Chief Finance Officer of Standard Chartered Bank SL has assured Sierra Leoneans that by 2020 his bank will work assiduously with its partners to restore sight to about 20 million people across 20 countries in the world including Sierra Leone.
Idrissa Kamara made this commitment over the weekend during a sponsored walk dubbed “Walk 4 Sight” at the Kingtom Football Academy in Freetown.
Kamara said they recognized that there were 37 million blind people in the world and about 161 million visually impaired. He said that the bank was also aware of the fact that about 75 percent of the world’s blindness was preventable and curable, adding that about 90 percent of the world’s blindness was in developing countries.
He said the Standard Chartered Bank had launched the “seeing is believing” initiative aimed at raising $100 million by the year 2020 to make a difference in the lives of the target 20 million people with particular focus on prevention and education as well as sight restoration. Kamara noted that globally, they had reached a significant milestone on their fundraising target of restoring sight to 20 million people across the world with support from their staff, stakeholders, flag sponsors, customers and other partners.
The Country Director of Sight Savers, Nancy Smart commended Standard Chartered Bank for their initiative in helping eradicate blindness in the country. She pointed out that there were about 23,000 backlog cases of cataract in the country. She said that with support from the bank, Sight Savers would be able to perform operations on about 19,000 affected people in the next four years, which she said would help immensely in eradicating blindness in the country.
Madam Smart implored all those that came out for the sponsored walk to help raise awareness about the project.
