By NTUC This Week Team
What is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)?
“It means being socially responsible to your employees, being socially responsible to the environment, and being socially responsible to the community you operate in.
Our Social Enterprises pay heed to these. Some have signed up to the UN Social Compact. But our Social Enterprises are more than that. They are being socially responsible by doing their business,” said NTUC Enterprise Chairman Lim Boon Heng.
Citing examples, Mr Lim said FairPrice continues to moderate the cost of living, NTUC First Campus has gone beyond helping women go back to work to helping parents nurture their children while NTUC Health strives to help seniors live happy and meaningful lives.
Also into CSR is the NTUC Care and Share Committee which embarks on a community service project annually to bring cheer to the underprivileged.
The NTUC-U Care Fund provides 50 per cent co-funding support to community service projects undertaken by affiliated unions/association and Labour Movement communities through the U Care Caring • Sharing • Reaching out (CSR) Co-Funding Scheme.
NTUC FairPrice Foundation
First established in 2008, NTUC FairPrice Foundation is NTUC FairPrice’s platform to give back to the community. With a mission of ‘A Better Life for the Community’, its philanthropic activities focus on three key areas: helping the poor and needy, building the nation and community bonding, and workers’ welfare.
NTUC FairPrice regularly supports a slew of projects to help the community, like the ‘Share a Heart coz U Care’ Campaign and Singapore’s first mobile cancer education bus. Recently, the social enterprise contributed $500,000 worth of essential food items and necessities like N95 masks to the People’s Association WeCarePacks to help needy families cope during the haze period.
One of the other ongoing annual projects include the Share-A-Textbook Project, where a record 400,000 textbooks were collected in 2014. The project benefited over 20,000 students between the ages of seven to 16. NTUC FairPrice also helps students through providing study grants – this amounted to $580,000 in 2014 for primary to tertiary students.
NTUC Income’s OrangeAid
Under NTUC Income’s Corporate Social Responsibility flagship initiative OrangeAid, the Future Development Programme launched in July this year seeks to help students from low-income families who are at risk of foregoing tertiary education in favour of entering the workforce to support their families.
Under the programme, some 1,000 bursaries will be given out over a period of three years to polytechnic and ITE students from disadvantage backgrounds. Polytechnic students will receive $3,000 and ITE students will receive $1,800.
The first year will see some 200 students from both local polytechnics and ITEs receive the bursaries. The number will double to 400 students for each of the remaining two years.
Eligible students are required to apply for the bursary through their schools.
“OrangeAid strives to level the playing field and provide equal opportunities for children and youth from disadvantaged circumstances. Through the Future Development Programme, we want to make an impact by ensuring that the youth from lower income families can achieve a better future through education,” said NTUC Income CEO Ken Ng.
NTUC First Campus’ Bright Horizons Fund
NTUC First Campus has an aim of providing quality early childhood care to families in Singapore at affordable prices, but there are certain families who may not have the necessary financial resources to send their children to school.
Set up in 2007, the Bright Horizons Fund became an approved Institute of Public Charter in 2009, helping a total of 5,235 children to date. The fund helps these children through co-funding of school fees or with various child development programmes, like the Read-to-REACH Programme and FAST (Family and School Together).
Read-to-REACH helps underprivileged children who have trouble recognising letters by building their confidence through literacy games, stories and songs. FAST promotes family bonding through learning journeys, and providing essential school items like school bags, stationery and shoes to students.
NTUC Women’s Development Secretariat's WeCare For U
Under the WeCare for U Project, NTUC Women’s Development Secretariat (WDS) partners with their various women chapters and unions to organise activities such as educational tours, learning journeys and workshops for single mothers and their children.
This initiative is part of WDS’ Corporate Social Responsibility to show care and be connected to the community. This year has seen WDS collaborating with unions like Union of ITE Training Staff (UITS), Attractions, Resorts & Entertainment Union (AREU), HDB Staff Union (HDBSU) and United Workers of Petroleum Industry (UWPI).
Ms Premalatha, a single mum who took leave from work to participate in a terrarium workshop and learning journey to HDB Centre with her two teenage children, said: “I am grateful to WDS for organising these activities. They provide great opportunities for me to bond with my children. My daughter was reluctant to attend this event at first, but after the session ended, she was beaming from ear to ear! This experience has enabled me and my children to learn beyond school and work.”
NTUC LearningHub
NTUC LearningHub (LHUB) participated in a fund-raising event organised by the Children Society on 6 September 2015. The event included a 3km walkathon and a carnival.
LHUB sponsored carnival coupons for 100 needy children to use at the event. The social enterprise also set up a games booth for the children. The funds raised have gone towards supporting the services provided by the Children Society.
U Care CSR Co-Funding Scheme
The Labour Movement introduced the U Care Caring • Sharing • Reaching out (CSR) Co-Funding Scheme from the NTUC U Care Fund in 2011. The U Care CSR initiative provides 50 per cent co-funding to support NTUC-affiliated unions, associations and communities on projects that benefit the community.
In 2014, there were 32 such community services projects that were co-funded by U Care CSR, demonstrating the Labour Movement’s caring and sharing spirit.
A Quality Life
One of the most recent community projects as part of the U Care CSR was a charity fair on 4 September 2015. Held at the PSA Club, the event was jointly organised by the Singapore Port Workers Union and Port Officers’ Union.
The charity fair, which sold fruits and nuts to raise funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDAS), raised over $7,500. All the proceeds were given to MDAS to help them provide programmes and activities that will let the elderly lead a quality life.
Honouring the Pioneers
Also on 4 September 2015, a group of 14 representatives from the Union of ITE Training Staff (UITS) went on a CSR visit to Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home. The trip was organised as part of Teachers’ Day to honour the pioneer generation.
The group packed goody bags with daily essential items such as medicated plasters and medicated oil to be given to the elderly of the home.
They also served the elderly a special bento lunch and went around the various wards to spread joy and laughter by entertaining with a repertoire of Chinese music using classical instruments.
At the end of the day, they presented the elderly with other gifts such as milk, hair clippers and other assorted daily supplies for the home.
NTUC Foodfare
Foodfare started a fund-raising initiative for the Man Fut Tong Nursing Home in mid-2013, with donation boxes placed at all NTUC Foodfare coffee shops and food courts, Rice Garden and Wang Cafe outlets islandwide.
Foodfare has managed to collect an average of $60,000 every year since it started, and all proceeds go to the nursing home.
Furthermore, the Government matches the funds dollar-to-dollar. The proceeds help the nursing home to fund medical and food costs, and to upkeep the nursing home.
Foodfare, along with the other NTUC social enterprises, is also offering deals as part of the Big Value Bag to mitigate the rising cost of living.
Throughout the day, coffee and tea will be sold from 60 cents at NTUC Foodfare coffee shops and 70 cents at food courts.
It also offers other deals like the All Day Set – Chicken Curry Rice Set price at $2 and sold at NTUC Foodfare food courts, coffee shops and Rice Garden stalls; the Afternoon Tea Set, which consists of a Big Pau and coffee or tea, and priced at $1.50 and sold at all NTUC Foodfare drink stalls.
Source: NTUC This Week
