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At Barclays, we aim to engage and support colleagues to work with the causes they care most about. Encouraging and inspiring our colleagues to support the causes closer to their heart is our way to ensure charity ‘begins at work’.
Colleague participation is also a key aspect of the projects considered and initiated by us. Instead of just giving money in the form of grants and sponsorships, we also try to support the initiatives through volunteering.
Our colleagues regularly participate in our annual campaigns like Make A Difference Day, Blood Donation Drive and Ramadan Time to Give. |
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| BARCLAYS MAKE A DIFFERENCE DAY |
An annual global event: Colleagues all over the world take part in the group-wide Make a Difference Day campaign in the last quarter of the year. The event is aimed at encouraging colleagues to give their time and knowledge, not money, and get involved in volunteering.
Since launch of Barclays Pakistan in July 2008, 306 colleagues from across the country have contributed their work and personal hours in seven separate initiatives and were joined by guests including friends, family, customers and suppliers. |
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| 1. SMB FATIMA JINNAH GIRLS SCHOOL |
Complementing the community investment made to this project in 2009, colleagues in Karachi have taken up the cause to forge greater ties with the students on various opportunities.
Awareness on Environmental Sustainability is a favourite theme of volunteers in Karachi, and they did a plantation drive at SMB Fatima Jinnah Secondary Girls School to provide a more eco-friendly environment to the students. Over 600 saplings were planted with the students last year.
Not only limited to MADD week, top and middle managers from Barclays do guest speaker sessions with class 9th and 10th on International Women's Day. Similarly, more expeditions are planned for the year on environment related activities.
Rahila Sheikh, a Branch Manager from Karachi, has summed up the essence of MADD week in the following words:
“Our next generation will reap the fruit of what we plant today. Group of small or big, can change the lives of many and we at Barclays are a small group with a big mission.” |
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| 2. THE CITIZENS FOUNDATION |
Colleagues in the upcountry took the initiative in our first MADD in 2008 and forged a relationship with TCF deeper than our funding support to their school in Burki at Lahore. The team treated students of 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades to a field-trip cum fun day at the zoo followed by lunch at McDonald's and concluded with a quiz on animals. Similarly, colleagues in Islamabad scraped the walls and painted classrooms of the TCF school in Bara Kahu.
In Karachi, more than ten volunteers from HR and Commercial Banking team did a special counselling and mentoring session for the students of Jumma Himmayati Secondary School. Volunteers also gifted general knowledge books, and after a 45 minute session, engaged students in team building and creative competitions. Colleagues from Barclays continue to stay attached to TCF by also enrolling in the 'Rahbar' program. |
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| 3. A DAY AT SOS CHILDREN’S VILLAGES |
One of the favourite charities of our colleagues: volunteers every year plan a day-out or day-in with the children of SOS Villages. Last year colleagues from Lahore took the children out for a fun-filled day and treated them to unlimited rides at the Joyland amusement park, followed by lunch.
The team in Islamabad did something different: a fun filled day at the SOS Village itself, located near our Rawat branch. Colleagues there arranged a special screening of an animated movie, played cricket with the children and engaged them in a painting competition. |
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| 4. A DAY AT SIUT |
| Since the Barclays Dialysis Day project with SIUT, we are proud to say that support amongst colleagues has tremendously been increasing at the personal level too. The first Barclays Pakistan MADD activities were conducted in 2008 at SIUT where colleagues in Karachi spent an entire day at SIUT interacting with children in the paediatric ward, cleaning the hospital and painting the music room. |
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| FUNDRAISING |
| ‘The Colours of Pakistan’ was the first fundraiser organized by the Operational Risk and Control Rigor (ORCR) team at Barclays. The objective was to raise funds for the benefit of deaf students at Family Educational Services Foundation (FESF). Since the fundraising activity coincided with Pakistan’s Independence Day, the event spontaneously became larger than life. In order to capitalize on this a painting competition was also held for the children of Barclays colleagues. The four best paintings were featured on greeting cards which were then sold to families, friends and customers across the country as a fund raising activity. |
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| BLOOD DONATION DRIVES |
Since December 2008 our colleagues at Barclays Pakistan have actively been involved in Blood Donation Drives to assist charitable organizations such as SIUT, Fatimid and Shaukat Khanam Memorial Hospital. To date, donors have helped in collecting nearly 250 units of blood (1 unit is equivalent to approx 450 ml).
“We don’t realize how important this activity is. Thanks to the awareness created amongst us and the ease of donating within the office premises, I am glad that at a personal level I am now contributing in this manner which I hadn’t done ever before.” |
| Quratullain Khalid - Compliance |
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| Barclays has already done three Blood Donation Drives and due to the response of our colleagues, it is now a part of our annual calendar. |
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| RAMADADN TIME TO GIVE CAMPAIGN |
Starting with the first holy month of Ramadan after the launch of Barclays in 2008, colleagues have been regularly contributing in the countrywide “Boxes of Goodness” campaign. In 2008 Barclays colleagues joined hands with Saiban in Karachi to distribute food packages to 100 families living in the Saiban incremental housing project, Khuda ki Basti. The event was deeply appreciated and generated such a positive response that it was made a permanent activity of Barclays Pakistan Community curriculum, titled ‘A Time to Give’.
In 2009, the colleagues at Barclays Pakistan distributed food ration boxes to over 300 low income families. The beneficiaries of this action were the parents of children studying in Barclays-HOPE home schools in Karachi, Barclays-UNICEF child centers in Brick kilns of Lahore and Faisalabad and internally displaced persons (IDPs) with Pakistan Red Crescent Society in Islamabad.
Each box distributed contained atta (flour), rice, daal (lentils), cooking oil, sugar, tea, basun (grounded chick peas), and dates and was expected to last a family of 6-7 an entire month.
Asad Ali, HR Head shared his personal opinion of the initiative taken by Barclays Pakistan colleagues and said:
“The Holy month of Ramadan nurtures patience, generosity and an opportunity to cleanse the soul. Through the distribution of Ramadan packages, our Barclays colleagues extended the bounties of generosity to the less fortunate in the spirit of this blessed month” |
| Asad Ali - HR Head |
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