Citi Sri Lanka to mark Global Community Day with eye camp for over 1,000 low-income beneficiaries

Friday, 10 June 2016 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Each year, tens of thousands of Citi volunteers, their friends and families join together for Global Community Day to offer their time, skills and expertise to make a difference in their cities. The annual activities focus on a range of local needs, from urban revitalisation to environmental conservation to literacy and education. Global Community Day is one of the many ways Citi shows its commitment to the communities where it has a presence.

This year in Sri Lanka, about 150 Citi volunteers together with Eye Care Institute will conduct an eye clinic on 11 June, to provide free spectacles and eye care services for more than 1,000 individuals from low income families.

Eye Care Institute is a college of Optometry expanding its curriculum and clinical programme to reflect the changing demands of the contemporary optometry practice in Sri Lanka. The beneficiaries come from 33 divisions within the Yatiyantota electorate. The value-add of the program is that the participants will be educated on eye care awareness and be examined for eye diseases including Glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and cataract.

Citi Country Officer Sri Lanka Ravin Basnayake said: “Last year, more than 80,000 Citi staff across 93 countries took part in Global Community Day. This year we want to engage even more deeply with the community. Our commitment to working together to tackle many of the challenges in our cities through service has never been greater. This year, we decided to conduct an eye camp for the fourth time to demonstrate Citi’s commitment to supporting the national blindness-prevention program VISION 2020.”

VISION 2020 is the global initiative for the elimination of avoidable blindness, launched in 1999, jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness. The goal is to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020.