Barclays observes community service day

Accra, Nov 7, GNA - Barclays Bank Ghana Limited on Saturday joined its global colleagues to perform community development services to observe this year's 'Make a Difference Day' (MADD).

MADD, which has been in existence for the past 14 years, is a day set aside by the bank to encourage people to volunteer their time and skills towards community development activities.

This year's event saw volunteers from all the banks 92 branches throughout the country engaging in various services to improve conditions at communities.

In Accra, its Airport City Branch cleaned and scrubbed some of the wards and offices of the 37 Military Hospital and presented a quantity of bed sheets for use by patients.

Its UNDP Branch also painted the Airport Police Basic A, B, C and D Schools blocks as well as their kindergartens. The Barclays Achimota Prestige Branch marked zebra crossing signs on the roads at Achimota Mile (7) to facilitate smooth crossing of the roads by school pupils.

Due to the ongoing constructional works on the main Achimota road, the hitherto less busy roads in the residential places have become busy because of the diversion of traffic through the town making it difficult for school children to cross the roads to go to schools.

In a statement to mark the day, Mr Benjamin Dabrah, Managing Director of Barclays Bank Ghana, said that the bank instituted the 'campaign to encourage volunteering among colleagues because employee engagement is at the core of our community investment programme'.

Mr Dabrah said that unlike the previous year's programme, this year's event was significant in the sense that more groups had registered to undertake counselling, career fairs and health screening for communities. He said over 4000 staff, family members and community partners would take part in this year's MADD activities across the country. Mr Dabrah said MADD had engaged 16,500 of its colleagues in 1077 projects across 13 countries last year.

Meanwhile, the bank on Friday also donated hospital equipment and assorted drinks worth GHc 3,000 to the Children's Ward of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital to enhance health delivery.