StanChart employees volunteer to make a difference to the community

WITH a spade in hand, Celes Kweng digs deep into the soil before planting her favourite herbs.

"Do you know that mangroves are the first line of defence when the sea level rises and prevent flooding? And their habitats store more carbon than rainforests (in the mud). They are a critical part of our fight against climate change," she quipped.

The nature aficionado is an avid gardener, and business administration and office manager, group property, of Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore).

Ms Kweng is one of the many staff volunteers in the bank, and has led her team in many volunteering activities, including mangrove clean-up, and kitchen preparation at Willing Hearts.

Post circuit-breaker, Ms Kweng rallied her colleagues to participate in the monthly food packing sessions with Food from the Heart, and the bank's annual Hari Raya Food Distribution in partnership with Heartwarmers.

"Volunteering puts us in a completely different mindset, away from our daily routine at work. It lightens the mood and develops human connection, which we may forget sometimes. Teaming up to accomplish a common goal in an informal setting - that creates a lasting shared memory and improves bonding among our team. It also introduces me to people that I would normally not meet. That expands my understanding of others who are different from me."

A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU

Friday, 12.30 pm

ESG Insights

An exclusive weekly report on the latest environmental, social and governance issues.

Sign Up

When asked to pinpoint an activity that left the biggest impression, the employee of seven years said that it was with Willing Hearts Soup Kitchen.

"About 80 of us showed up at 4.30am and started working in smaller teams. We had to wash and chop vegetables, clean up raw fishes, cook in a giant pot, pack hundreds of food into packets, and deliver the food to different parts of Singapore."

Hierarchy in the work place did not matter as "the senior executives got their hands dirty and were washing raw fishes. Other colleagues were drenched in sweat while frying over 100 eggs. We felt as one".

However, there have been stumbling blocks along the way.

"Logistics! Finding a date that can fit our work schedule is a challenge, sourcing a suitable venue that can accommodate 40 to 60 of us (pre-Covid) was another," said Ms Kweng, who was Employee Volunteering (EV) champion for the global team from 2014 to 2018.

"Most of us want to help those who are less fortunate than ourselves. We volunteer because we want to make a difference in the community.

"The bank gives us three days of volunteering leave every year (four days in 2020) and offers many EV opportunities which we can join as a team or individual."

Patrick Lee, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore), said: "At Standard Chartered, we believe that the well-being of the community is important to the stability and prosperity of our society. This is closely linked to the sustainability of our business and this is why volunteering is embedded in our corporate culture.

"The bank has operated for more than 160 years in many of the markets within our network. We believe in being part of the social fabric and it is important to forge deep relationships in the community. The bank offers three days of EV leave to every employee to support local causes that are close to their heart. In 2020, each employee has an additional day to support their local community through the pandemic."

Last year, Standard Chartered also rolled out a new suite of virtual volunteering activities (which take place mostly online or via virtual communication platforms) to meet the needs of the community during the pandemic.

Helping HIV patients

"We will continue to develop and deepen partnerships with other corporates and non-profit organisations to amplify our giving, especially in supporting youth education, entrepreneurship and employability - as part of its Futuremakers global community initiative," added Mr Lee.

Being in such a firm has encouraged Victor Ong, client delivery associate, transaction banking, Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore), to re-embark on his volunteering journey.

"I started volunteering during university as a youth mentor with a Family Service Centre (FSC). Due to work commitments, I stopped after a few years and only restarted when I joined Standard Chartered in 2007."

Since then, the 44-year-old has been actively supporting patients living with HIV. He has been involved in food rations distribution with the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) Cares almost every month for the last 13 years.

The bank started its global campaign, Living With HIV, in 1999, and it also partnered Patient Care Centre (PCC) at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (now known as NCID Cares) to support low-income HIV-affected individuals and families since 2007.

Mr Ong hopes that one day, the stigma associated with HIV/Aids will be removed. "We need to empower ourselves with the right information, and we can play a role in building compassion and encouraging empathy towards them.

"I do not see the beneficiaries as HIV-impacted families, but as needy families who just need a helping hand from the community."

Mr Ong adds that volunteering has helped him to communicate and empathise with people from all levels of society.

"This is useful as my job requires me to engage clients and different stakeholders so as to provide remediations and solutions to their issues. It is also gratifying that Standard Chartered recognises the time and efforts that we put in for our community. A company should not just be profit-centric and it's great that we contribute our profits, talents and efforts to help those in need. It tells me that the company I work for is not simply about dollars and cents. It is also human."

These sentiments were echoed by Jane Tan, executive assistant, technology & innovation, Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore), who recently started virtual volunteering with the Citizen Archivist Project (CAP) by the National Archives of Singapore (NAS).

Virtual volunteering

It was the veteran volunteer's first foray into virtual volunteering, and Ms Tan's role included helping to make historical records more accessible and searchable for the public by transcribing audio files, and translating record labels which are in Thai, Vietnamese and Burmese.

"During the Covid-19 circuit breaker, I felt sad when face-to-face volunteer activities were not allowed. So when the CAP virtual volunteering event was available, I was more than happy to try it out!"

CAP is a crowdsourcing partnership between NAS and the public. It calls for the public's help to transcribe and describe the extensive records found in the NAS. The collective efforts of "citizen archivists" help NAS ensure that records are properly indexed and easy to look for.

Ms Tan said: " It was really challenging to make out some words on the old record labels. They were blurry so I had to zoom in and do my best to translate it. It took me days… much longer than I expected. I had to consult my friends in Thailand and my Myanmar friend in Singapore to help me out. At the same time, I also used Google translate. Though NAS will vet and authenticate the submissions, I feel that it is very important to get them right the first time.

"Volunteering has built my self-confidence and self-esteem, and strengthened my skills such as teamwork, planning and organising. It has also made me more appreciative of Singapore's rich history and culture.

"When I spoke to the older Singaporeans for the purpose of CAP, they spoke about the hardships that they had gone through in the early days, how they overcame the odds, the games they played, and how people lived and interacted in the kampongs. Everyone knew each other and helped one another, regardless of race or religion. There is a lot of unity amid the different cultures, religions and backgrounds, and I think it is important in creating the Singapore we know today."

When asked about an interesting fact that she gleaned from the records, Ms Tan said: "Singapore is affectionately known as the 'Little Red Dot' by most people. Through volunteering, I came to know about the origin - it was a term first coined by late former Indonesian President Habibie in 1998 to refer to our country's appearance on the map."

• This article is part of a series on doing good for our community, supported by Standard Chartered Bank