The British Council in partnership with Standard Chartered bank has celebrated World Sight Day 2016 recently at British Council, Fuller Road office.
World Sight Day is a special annual day of awareness that is celebrated around the world each year to focus on blindness and vision impairment. To celebrate this day British Council had arranged a Young Learners’ Art Competition with this year’s Theme “Stronger Together”.
Around 2500 kids (aged between 5 -14) from all over Bangladesh took part in the art Competition. Among them 30 winners are selected and awarded certificates and prizes in the ceremony.
The ceremony was designed with a crafts workshop and Cultural Programme for Kids. There was a voluntary eye camp for all the guests supported by Lions Club Bangladesh. Mr. Jim Scarth, Deputy Director, British Council Bangladesh, Ms. Sarwat Reza, Library Manager, British Council Bangladesh, Ms. Bitopi Das Chowdhury, Head Of corporate Affairs, Standard Chartered Bank and Mr. Ln. Shakhawat Hossain, Chief Advisor, Lions Club Motijheel Royal were present in the ceremony.
“The British Council has been working to address and seek solutions to various social problems in Bangladesh and around the globe for decades. This year, we are glad to partner up with Standard Chartered Bank to pursue actionable solutions to the globally significant issue, which is also highly relevant in Bangladesh,” said Jim Scarth, Deputy Director, British Council Bangladesh.
“Standard Chartered Bank has been working in the eye health sector for quite some time. Seeing is believing or SiB is the Bank’s global initiative to tackle avoidable (preventable or treatable) blindness. The project was conceptualized and first launched here by Standard Chartered Bangladesh in 2003 to combat such blindness and restore eyesight to the underprivileged,” said Ms. Bitopi Das Chowdhury, Head of Corporate Affairs, Standard Chartered Bank.
“Since then, we have reached almost 123 million people through medical interventions, eye examinations, health education and health worker training. We believe, only through building awareness can we help the 285 million blind or visually impaired people in the world, because 80 per cent of such issues can be prevented or treated.”
