Bandar Seri Begawan - Photographer Hj Muhd Zailaney Hj Nordin yesterday walked away with a Canon EOSI000D kit comprising of an EFS 18-55mm image stabiliser lens, a Canon EOS Crumpler bag and a Canon T-shirt sponsored by Interhouse Marketing, after his photo entry won the heart of judges making him the grand prizewinner of the Standard Chartered Bank's Seeing is Believing Photo Competition.

His winning photo showed an elderly man set against a green background encouraging individuals to practise spending five minutes every morning focusing their eyes on greenery/forest to help prevent eye sight problems.

The announcing of the grand prizewinner of the contest held in conjunction with the World Sight Day that was observed globally yesterday, took place at a prize presentation ceremony held at the bank's main office in the capital.

In attendance were the panel of judges of the photo competition namely, the CEO of SCB, Mr Danny Quah; General Manager Premium Banking and Seeing Is Believing Champion, Mr Andy Ang; General Manager of Interhouse Marketing, Mr Vincent Goh; Eye Specialist of the RIPAS Eye Clinic, Dr Nayan Joshi; and Mr Jan Shim of Jan Shim Photography who is well-recognised in the field in the region.

The event began with remarks by CEO Danny Quah who expressed appreciation to the community for their support to the photo competition, which the bank believes helped everyone appreciate the wonders of sight.

Touching on why SCB is so passionate about avoidable blindness, he shared some statistics about blindness that leads to the bank's passion about the issue. There are 45 million blind people globally, numbers forecast to increase to 76 million by 2020 unless something is done. One child goes blind every minute, 60 per cent of children die within a year of going blind but 80 per cent of blindness is avoidable, either preventable or curable.

"Avoidable blindness is a key issue in the markets where Standard Chartered Bank operates as 90 per cent of avoidable blindness occurs in the developing world. This is an economic issue as well as a health issue."

He further added that restoring someone's sight not only enables that person to be economically productive but it also liberates carers to work or attend education.

"In Brunei, we are fortunate to have excellent health care services that contribute greatly to tackling avoidable blindness. Nevertheless, we constantly look for ways to engage with our community to help through programmes such as this."

The bank also works closely with the Brunei Darussalam National Association of the Blind and the Visually-Impaired Division of the Special Education Unit, Ministry of Education, in funding equipment as well as on various initiatives to help improve the well-being of the lives of the visually-impaired community in Brunei Darussalam.

In addition, SCB also sponsors the office and activity centre of the Brunei Darussalam National Association of the Blind that is located in Gadong.

"Recent Seeing is Believing initiatives included a programme to donate special glasses to those with low vision and Vision to Read - a programme that involved our staff sparing their time to read books to be converted into audio books. We are very proud to have donated 150 audio books to the Special Education Unit."

On top of that, this year, added the CEO, the bank also worked with RIPAS Eye Clinic to have some of its staff trained to conduct eye testing so that assistance in this area can be provided when extra help is required.

Other five top photos were also selected and received special consolation prizes from the Bank. They are Manoj Ashok, Lim Yan Ling, Haji Mohammad Kamarul Dzaman bin Haji Ajimain, Haji Mohammad Sudiru AbdullaO.R d Mohammad Syafiq bin Haji Abd Bakar.

The photo competition, which is just one of the many initiatives that Standard Chartered Bank carries out to raise awareness on the issues of avoidable blindness, carried the theme "The Difference of Sight" and was open to all photography enthusiasts to participate.

To find out more about Seeing Is Believing and the Bank's other sustainability programmes, the public can do so by visiting www.standardchartered.com/bn. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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