KATHMANDU: Standard Chartered — for supporting the community and the group’s commitment — conducted a fund-raising programme yesterday, Walkathon 2009 — ‘A Walk for a Brighter Tomorrow’.

According to the bank’s statement, the Walkathon was Standard Chartered Nepal’s initiative to raise funds in partnership with its stakeholders to increase awareness amongst the people on the subject of blindness and an effort to reduce stigma and encourage visually challenged people. The bulk of the funds raised from this event will go towards the bank’s ‘Seeing is believing’ initiative and the rest for the other focus areas of the bank including HIV/AIDS, environment and education.

Tara Management and Surya Nepal Pvt Ltd. were the main sponsors of this event while National Insurance Company Ltd was the co-sponsor. The Himalayan Times was the media partner for this event.

This event was attended by the staff of the bank, colleagues of organizations that partnered the bank for this event, visually-challenged students of Technical & Skill Development Centre for Blind and Disabled at Kirtipur and Living with HIV colleagues from Maiti Nepal and Shakti Milan Samuha. The Walk, which was attended by approximately 450 people started from the Naya Baneshwor branch of the bank and ended at Lazimpat. Standard Chartered believes in being an ethical and responsible community partner and Corporate Social Responsibility is integral to everything it does.