Standard Chartered’s Group Finance Director, Richard Meddings, has pledged to run The Standard Chartered Great City Race 2009 blindfolded to help raise funds for the race’s official community partner, Seeing is Believing (SiB). Today, organisers call for the other runners to start fundraising and help make a difference*.
Seeing is Believing is a charitable collaboration between Standard Chartered and the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) to help eradicate avoidable blindness. There are over 45 million blind people across the world and yet 80% of blindness is preventable or curable. The need to tackle this is acute – a child goes blind every minute and, tragically, 60% of children die within a year of going blind. As Chairman and long serving champion of SiB, Meddings has been raising thousands of pounds through fundraising, including auctioning the chance to guide him round the 5K race course.
The Standard Chartered Great City Race, now in its fifth year, takes place on Thursday 16 July through the closed off streets of London’s square mile. Companies are invited to enter teams of four or more runners with ??5 from every entry going directly to SiB. Standard Chartered has pledged to match pound for pound all funds raised for SiB, doubling the impact of all donations.
Richard Meddings commented, “The Standard Chartered Great City Race and Seeing is Believing form the perfect partnership to help raise the profile within the capital of this very worthy cause. 80% of cases of blindness are avoidable through prevention or cure so if runners raise additional sponsorship, we can make a real difference to tackling avoidable blindness. Standard Chartered will match all donations made through the race which will bring Seeing is Believing even closer to meeting its ambitious fundraising target to raise a further $20 million by the end of 2012.”
More than 90% of the world’s blind live in low and middle-income countries. With over half the world’s population now urban, the challenge of delivering eye-care services to swelling informal urban areas has grown considerably. Funds raised will go to the development of sustainable eye-care services in 20 less-advantaged urban areas in the developing world. These will provide poor and marginalised populations access to cataract surgery, preventative treatment, screening, and specialised medical interventions.
Now firmly established as the City’s premier corporate running challenge, this year’s race is on course to field the maximum 6,500 runners from teams representing all City business sectors. After last year’s sell-out success, City workers are advised to sign up as early as possible to avoid disappointment. Companies can go directly to the official race website at cityrace to enter their teams.
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City Race