Standard Chartered brings families, community together for National Family Festival
It is one of various family focused community initiatives in June, which is also the bank’s Global Employee Volunteering Month
[SINGAPORE] Ashish Arora, a risk and compliance project manager at Standard Chartered (StanChart), usually spends his weekends grocery shopping or running errands. But on Jun 1, he spent the day volunteering at the National Family Festival (NFF) 2025 with his 78-year-old father and 20-year-old daughter.
Led by the Families For Life Council and supported by the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), NFF works with corporate and community partners such as StanChart.
The festival was held from May 31 to Jun 29, and kicked off at Singapore Expo before expanding islandwide. Open to all families, it included sports activities, educational workshops, arts and crafts stations, and marketplace booths.
StanChart rallied around 500 employees to be volunteers, along with their families. They took on various roles – from running activity booths to guiding visitors.
Arora said: “We volunteered as this was a unique family led event organised to bring families together at a national level, and encourage the spirit of family bonding and strong relationships... What made it even more special for us was that the three generations of our family volunteered together.”
The trio was initially assigned to be event facilitators, but their roles were changed on site based on where more support was needed. Ultimately, Arora helped out with crowd management and guiding visitors.
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Overall, he called it an “incredible experience”, adding that watching families come together during this school holiday period to participate in games was rewarding.
Besides bringing families together at NFF, StanChart also aims to support its employees in various aspects of their lives, including at home.
Andrew Chia, StanChart’s head of wealth and retail banking for Singapore, Asean and South Asia, said: “By volunteering together as a family, we hope our colleagues and their loved ones can strengthen their bonds through a shared sense of purpose. At the same time, we hope to provide an opportunity for the parents among us to lead by example and instil the value of giving back in their children.”
This was also a chance for employees to bond with each other, which builds camaraderie and allows them to grow their own personal skill sets.
“We’ve witnessed many colleagues progress from volunteers to leading bank-wide community initiatives. This is a powerful enabler to hone leadership skills and achieve personal growth,” he added.
StanChart employees engaged in skills-based volunteering at NFF by running financial literacy workshops in partnership with Prudential Singapore. Children from MSF’s ComLink+ initiative learnt about money management concepts through engaging and interactive games.
Putri Syahmira Mohd Isa, whose family is supported under MSF’s ComLink+ initiative, said: “The workshop emphasised... that we need to earn and save money. Because in life, it’s fundamental for kids, not just adults, to learn the basics of money – its purpose and what to do with it every day.”
Chia added: “Through these workshops, we hope to help build stronger families, as they grow in their journey towards financial independence.”
Family focused volunteering initiatives
NFF kicked off StanChart’s Global Employee Volunteering Month in June. This is when employees from around the world are encouraged to use their volunteering leave for causes they resonate with, and participate in various activities from youth mentoring to food distribution to blood donation.
Besides NFF, the bank on Jun 13 held a clean-up activity at Marina Bay to raise awareness about sustainability and urban waste, in conjunction with World Environment Day and Father’s Day. Close to 40 volunteers – mostly fathers with their children – picked up litter near StanChart’s office at Marina Bay Financial Centre.
Meanwhile, Project 200=100 is an ongoing initiative in which eligible families can shop for groceries at half the retail price or up to a maximum discount of S$100. Instead of receiving traditional pre-packed donations, beneficiaries can choose their own products.
Project 200=100 occurs once every two months on weekends, and StanChart employees currently volunteer at three locations – Leng Kee, Punggol West and Fengshan.
Around 80 StanChart employee volunteers help out at each event as cashiers, packers, or to assist with booth management and event coordination. The bank has partnered Heartwarmers Volunteer Group for Project 200=100 since 2017, to help sandwiched-class families who fall outside traditional support schemes but still face cost-of-living pressures.
Chia noted that more than 50 per cent of StanChart employees in Singapore volunteered at least once in 2024, and contributed more than 43,000 volunteer hours.
“Our community efforts have fostered a deeper sense of corporate purpose and camaraderie among our colleagues... As an international bank, we will continue to leverage the diverse skills, expertise and experience of our talent pool to focus on skills-based volunteering,” he added.
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