Sightsavers Zambia collaborate with Standard Chartered Bank in celebrating and commemorating World Sight Day 2017

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Sightsavers Zambia collaborate with Standard Chartered Bank in celebrating and commemorating World Sight Day 2017

The World Sight Day (WSD) is an annual day of awareness held on the second Thursday of October each year to focus global attention on blindness and vision impairment. It is the most important advocacy and communications event on the eye health calendar. WSD preparations brings collaborations between different organisations and partner who work in eye health.

During WSD 2017, Sightsavers Zambia collaborated with the local Standard Chartered Bank in celebrating and commemorating the WSD activities. Standard Chartered Bank volunteers participated in raising awareness among the population of Lusaka district with regards to the provision of eye care services as well as providing a challenge to other Corporations on the need to raise their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The Bank engagement activities were spearheaded by the Associate Director Investment Services – Wealth Management (Donna Forte-Regis Muleba).

Prior to the World Sight Day which was commemorated on the 9^th of October 2017, Sightsavers and the Bank held pre-planning meetings to determine how and where the public screening activities would be conducted.

Sightsavers Zambia and the Local Standard Chartered Bank agreed to conduct eye screening services prior to the actual World Site Day. These screenings were held in 3 of the Bank’s branches in Lusaka.

Sightsavers Zambia has continued to work with the bank and the joint planning for the WSD has enabled the relationship of the two institutions to grow such that every time the local Standard Chartered Bank wants to engage its volunteers in community service, they would approach Sightsavers Zambia for some possible eye screening events.

As a result of the synergies with the bank and building on their strong marketing strategy, a total of 729 (406 male and 323 female) were screened and 418 (221 male and 197 female) were dispensed with glasses prior to the actual WSD. As a way of continued collaboration and in an effort to continue the Sightsavers/Bank engagement, another screening event was requested by the bank which Sightsavers Zambia gladly engaged the eye screening team from the Chainama College of Health Sciences to conduct the screening. The one day screening was done at one of the shopping malls in Lusaka and a total of 632 people were screened (353 male, 279 female) and 468 were dispensed with glasses (353 male and 278 female).

The Bank volunteers have been engaged in marketing of the services being offered during the events that Sightsavers and the Bank holds. The volunteers have also been involved in the registration of clients as well as assisting the clients reading the Eye Charts. This engagement of volunteers brought in a great satisfaction for the bank volunteers in appreciating eye care services as well as gave them the pride as the main donor in providing the service to the poor in the SIB project. The Banks strong marketing strategy has been mutual in providing visibility (both for the Bank as well as the Seeing is Believing). The support that the bank has been offering to eye care service delivery is being appreciated by the government and the general public.