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Home / Media / Press Releases / COVID-19: Standard Chartered supports program offering free tests for medical personnel, the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity’s intervention fund and educational care facilities

COVID-19: Standard Chartered supports program offering free tests for medical personnel, the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity’s intervention fund and educational care facilities

on 10 Jun 2020

As part of an international financial institution that is developing its global business services center in Warsaw, we support the fight against COVID-19 and its consequences in Poland.

We became a partner of the “Badamy-Wspieramy” program organized by DIAGNOSTYKA Group under which free tests for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 are provided for medical staff. In addition, we made a donation to the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity’s intervention fund, as part of which essential medical and protective equipment is purchased and donated to hospitals. We also support educational care facilities in improving the accessibility of remote education. We cooperate with Janusz Korczak Orphanage Association in Warsaw and with Digital University Foundation. In total, Standard Chartered allocated almost PLN 600,000 to these initiatives.

Supporting the front lines in the fight against the pandemic

The financial support that we have provided for fighting the pandemic and its consequences in Poland is both for immediate and long-term help. We joined the group of partners of the “Badamy-Wspieramy” program under which free tests are provided for medical staff. This helps improve safety of medical professionals, their families and patients. The same idea was behind our decision to make a donation to the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity’s intervention fund supporting medical facilities by providing them with protective measures and necessary equipment in this particularly difficult period for them.

Rowena Everson, Managing Director of Standard Chartered’s global services center in Poland

“Thanks to the involvement of Standard Chartered we are able to develop a free SARS-CoV-2 testing program for healthcare professionals. This is a unique form of support for local healthcare needs provided by an international financial company. It offers more than a short-term effect and is not limited to a narrow group of recipients, which is why it is so valuable,” emphasizes Jakub Strzelczyk, Operations Director at DIAGNOSTYKA Group, which is the organizer of the “Badamy-Wspieramy” initiative. Since mid-April, almost 6,500 medics have already been tested thanks to the initiative organized by DIAGNOSTYKA Group and financed with the support of the program partners.

Standard Chartered has also supported the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity’s intervention fund. The donation will be used to purchase medical and protective equipment for medical facilities.

“Thanks to the help of companies involved in supporting the intervention fund, including Standard Chartered as well as individual donors, we have already managed to collect over PLN 21 million for the purchase of the most essential medical and personal protective equipment to combat the pandemic. So far, we have purchased 25 ultrasound machines, 157 cardiac monitors, 200 intensive care beds, 75,000 face shields and 71 respirators,” said Anna Jadwiga Orzech, spokeswoman for the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity Foundation.

Fighting the digital exclusion

“The pandemic generates enormous challenges not only for the protection of human health and life, but also in other important areas, such as the education of children and adolescents. When education takes place remotely for the most part, access to knowledge is hindered by limited access to the technologies that make remote education possible. This is a problem that also has to be faced by educational care facilities which do not have sufficient equipment resources to support all the children under their care in remote learning. Standard Chartered supports the education and development of young people as part of our Futuremakers program, and we have made subsequent donations to help children and adolescents living in educational care facilities in the acquisition of knowledge and skills necessary to become independent and be able to enter the labor market in the future,” added Rowena Everson, commenting on the support provided by Standard Chartered to Janusz Korczak Orphanage Association in Warsaw and the Digital University Foundation.

“The help from Standard Chartered will allow us to equip the facilities we support with computer equipment necessary for online learning, thus improving the access of those under our care to remote education during and after the pandemic. We will also use the funds provided by the company to purchase personal protective equipment, which will help us to improve the safety of children and adolescents staying in our facilities and their guardians,” says Izabela Gawlicka, President of the Janusz Korczak Orphanage Association in Warsaw.

The donation to the Digital University Foundation will be used to finance the Digital4Kids project. Its aim is to tackle the digital exclusion of children and adolescents from orphanages and other educational care facilities, with a particular emphasis on institutions operating outside large urban areas.

The activities of Standard Chartered in Poland are carried out as part of the COVID-19 global charitable fund worth USD 50 million which supports all the markets in which the bank operates. USD 2.5 million of this amount has already been donated to over 30 local charities operating in 16 markets in Europe and the Americas.