To celebrate its 5^th Anniversary, Standard Chartered's unique marathon series The Greatest Race on Earth (GROE) will support Seeing is Believing, a global initiative to help tackle avoidable blindness. GROE, a challenging virtual relay race across our four established marathons in Nairobi, Singapore, Mumbai and Hong Kong, has gone from strength to strength, and has truly become a “World Cup of Marathons”.

Seeing is Believing, a partnership between Standard Chartered and the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness, has to date raised over USD 17million for blindness initiatives, making a difference to the lives of 10 million people through prevention and cure. It now plans to invest a further USD 20 million by 2012 to provide sustainable eye services for 20 million people in the least advantaged areas of 20 cities around the globe.

In order to help raise funds for Seeing is Believing, staff of Standard Chartered are taking part in The Greatest Race on Earth Staff Half Marathon Challenge – each team of four will run one half marathon each in Nairobi, Singapore, Mumbai and Hong Kong. These locations represent some of the most challenging urban running environments in the world. Whether it's the intense heat of Mumbai and Singapore, the steep inclines of Hong Kong, or the high altitude of Nairobi, participants in GROE face an extremely difficult task.

Please support the teams of Standard Chartered staff in their efforts by sponsoring them – every dollar donated will be matched by Standard Chartered, and will help make a difference to the lives of avoidably blind people around the world.