To mark World Sight Day to be observed on Friday, Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) in partnership with Sight Savers International and Layton Rehmatullah Benevolent Trust (LRBT) launched the next phase of its 'seeing is believing' campaign.
The campaign aims to restore sight to one million people and to set in place an infrastructure for this purpose. As part of this programme, 12 projects across 10 countries have been identified for support.
In Pakistan, projects related to LRBT namely the Korangi Eye Hospital in Karachi and Eye and Cancer Hospital in Lahore have been selected.
As a result of this commitment, 54,000 people will receive sight-restoring operations and another 325,000 people will receive medical treatment and other types of surgical operation. SCB consumer banking head Abid Sattar stated this while addressing a press conference on Monday.
"Our commitment to 'seeing is believing' is absolute and ongoing. Through our partnership with the LRBT, we hope to make a marked difference to the Pakistani community. We hope the gift of sight will help change the live of our nation forever," he said.
On this occasion, Sadiq Amin of the LRBT highlighted aims and objectives of his organisation and presented some facts regarding prevailing blindness in the world.
He pointed out that 45 million people in the world were blind and yet 80 percent of this blindness could be prevented or cured.
About 90 percent of them were in developing countries with devastating human and economic consequences, he added.
Rehan Shaikh of SCB corporate branch also spoke on the occasion.