Kathmandu

As the sounds of dhime was heard, people walking on the road sides craned their heads towards at the direction from where the music was being played. A long queue of people was walking behind the musicians on the fine Saturday morning of November 28. People taking part in the walk were not there to show their solidarity to any kind of protest or dissatisfaction going on in the country; these were people walking for a cause — to raise funds to increase awareness amongst the public on the subject of avoidable blindness. Organised by the Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) Nepal under the theme ‘Walk for a Brighter Tomorrow’, this walkathon was held to raise funds for its corporate social initiatives of the bank — Seeing is Believing.

“We have been organising this event to raise awareness on avoidable blindness and are also collecting funds to address the issues of visual impairment. The funds raised from this event will go towards the bank’s Seeing is Believing initiative through which eye and eye care services are being continued,” informed Diwakar Poudel, Head of Brand, Marketing and Corporate Affairs at SCB.

The event was participated by the staff of the bank, customers, partner organisations supporting this event including Maiti Nepal and various other stakeholders. The walk was attended by around 400 people.

The walkathon took a reverse route this year. It would generally start from its head office at Baneshwor and would end at its branch in Lazimpat. However, this year the walkathon started from of Lazimpat going through Durbar Marg, Bhadrakali, Sahid Gate, Tripureshwor, Maitighar, Babar Mahal and ending it at Baneshwor. Gopi Bhandari, Chief Risk Officer at SCB, was feeling fantastic to be a part of this walkathon. Bhandari, who has been taking part in the walkathon for the last seven years shared, “The environment is good and it is exciting to walk for a noble cause. It was a new experience to walk the reverse route and I feel that the routes should be changed in the coming years so that the walk becomes more interesting.”

There were face painting and cultural events to make the event more interesting. Manish Paudel, 11, and Shubham Shrestha, 12, were in the walkathon with their faces painted. “We are surprised that we too walked five kilometres in two hours,” Shrestha shared. “Walking for such a fundraising event was interesting and worth walking experience,” shared Paudel.

The children from Maiti Nepal enriched the event with varieties of dance steps. The children standing on each others’ shoulders, shaking and falling to the ground gave a reflection of the April 25 earthquake and the message “we will rise again” was well presented by the students standing erect to form a vertical Dharahara. Children in Kumari dress, make-up and dancing on the stage were another treat to the eyes. Hip-hop dance, B-Boying and many other items added fun to the event.