Standard Chartered Bank today announced that Seeing is Believing, its global initiative to help tackle avoidable blindness, will invest US$20 million over the next five years to fund the development of sustainable eye care services in less advantaged areas of 20 cities worldwide. The announcement is timed to coincide with World Sight Day taking place this week, an annual event focusing on the problem of global blindness.
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The new urban focus of the programme reflects the increasing incidence of avoidable blindness in cities, especially as urbanisation swells the numbers of people living in less advantaged areas, where access to eye care is poor and awareness around eye health is low. The services will also be sustainable, designed to support marginalised and excluded populations both now and in the future.
Two projects have already been selected in Hyderabad and Delhi. The Bank’s partnership in these projects would be through Operation Eyesight Universal (OEU), a Canadian organization committed to developing and modelling blindness prevention programmes and eye care delivery systems that reflect the needs of the region or country. For the India projects, OEU will focus on creating strong links between community and the various levels of eye care service systems. This new vision for Seeing is Believing brings the programme closer to the heart of the Bank’s communities.
