Seeing Is Believing

Seeing is Believing

Table of Contents

Page 1 of 8

About ‘Seeing is Believing’

Standard Chartered Bank’s main objective for sponsoring the Nairobi Marathon is to raise funds for the eradication of avoidable blindness among children under the age of nine years, through the Bank’s global initiative ‘Seeing is Believing’.

 ‘Seeing is Believing’ is the Bank’s flagship sustainability initiative aimed at eradicating avoidable and curable blindness.  The program was launched in 2003, as part of Standard Chartered Bank’s 150th anniversary celebrations. Since its launch, the Seeing is Believing program has helped 23 million people, giving more than 2.78 million people their sight back.

Standard Chartered Bank decided to get involved in the eradication of avoidable blindness because of the reasons below:

  • 39 million people across the world are blind;
  • 80 percent of blindness is avoidable;
  • 90 percent of avoidable blindness occurs in the developing world;
  • Every five seconds, someone goes blind;
  • One child goes blind every minute and 60 percent of children die within one year of going blind; 
  • Without effective, major intervention, the number of blind people in the world could increase to 76 million by 2020.

At the launch, in 2003 our target was to raise funds to restore the eyesight of 28,000 people. Such was the enthusiasm with which the staff adopted the challenge, that year the Bank achieved twice its initial target. Since then, the ambition of “Seeing is Believing” has grown exponentially. In Phase II, US$6 million was raised to contribute to 1 million sight restorations.  This goal was achieved by World Sight Day 2007.

Phase III of “Seeing is Believing” aimed to raise US$10 million to make a difference to the lives of 10 million people across 20 countries by 2010.  Thanks to the hard work of our employees, the Bank exceeded its target of US$10 million, 3 years ahead of schedule.  The Bank was able to implement 32 projects in 17 countries through the funds raised in the third phase. In Kenya under Phase III the Bank funded the expansion of the eye clinics at Kapsabet District Hospital, Kapenguria District Hospital and Iten District Hospital. The new clinics have consultation rooms, mini theaters and state-of-the-art eye equipment.

In 2008, 'A New Vision' was launched. A New Vision marked an evolution in the Bank’s strategy as we progressed from funding surgeries and medicine to developing systems and processes to ensure the long-term sustainability of the programme.  This builds on the Bank’s strengths and more closely integrates ‘Seeing is Believing’ with our business and brand. The move was in response to feedback from our partners, the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Through this the Bank committed to invest USD20 million to provide sustainable eye-care services for 20 million people in 20 cities across the Standard Chartered Bank footprint by 2014. Nairobi was one of the cities that was considered. The Bank plans to raise USD10 million which will be matched by the Bank. So far, the Bank has been able to raise USD8 million towards the target of USD10 million.

In September 2011, we pledged to raise USD100 million by 2020 for sustainable eye-care programmes, aiming to reach 50 million people.

Social Activity