Standard Chartered Bank Ghana is celebrating its Employee Volunteering month with a focus on the education of the public on HIV/AIDS and the recently launched Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
After visiting the Odorgonno Senior High School, the staff went to the Abossey Okai Spare Parts Market, where they distributed more than 10,000 pieces of male and female condoms and some 8,000 leaflets.
More than 140 staff, drawn from the High Street, North Industrial Area and Opeibea branches of the bank, participated in the programme.
Speaking at the event, Adalbert Rutaisire, the Chief Information Officer, Ghana, said the bank been a forerunner in the fight against HIV/AIDS since 1999 when its Living with HIV/AIDS Programme was launched to help educate its workers, customers/clients and members of the public.
“To date, we have been able to reach over 120,000 people directly with the message on HIV/AIDS and all our staff are equally schooled on the subject matter,” he said.
He said the Bank’s Sustainability agenda enjoined its staff to share their expertise, skills and resources with others like them.
“We have come here today to share the same message with you and to encourage you to protect yourselves from this deadly disease,” he said.
On the SDGs, he said the new set of Development Goals was to serve as the standard for development for the world for the next 15 years.
He said the Goals sought to eliminate poverty and inequality and to tackle Climate Change.
It is in this direction that the bank has joined forces with the United Nations and some corporate bodies to spread word about these Goals so that everyone in the world would know about them and commit to supporting efforts at making them a reality.
“Some 193 nations have already committed to these goals at the United Nations and our bank is a founding partner of the global campaign to reach seven billion people in seven days,”he said.
He said the bank had also developed a WhatsApp video on the goals and entreated staff to share with others and to commit to supporting efforts at helping with its implementation at every level of engagement they had some influence.
“Our goal as a bank is to help make the world a better place and we solicit your support in that direction,” he said.
The Employee Volunteering months ends on October 20.
Other programmes for the month are a ‘Walk in Support of the Seeing is Believing programme” and another HIV/AIDS programme to the Madina Market.
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Credit: Standard Chartered Bank