UOB raises a record of more than $1.58 million for 15 charities across Asia
A record 19,000 United Overseas Bank (UOB) colleagues, their families, customers and business partners from across the Bank’s global network participated in the Bank’s annual Heartbeat Run/Walk event this morning.
Now in its 13th year, the 2019 UOB Heartbeat Run/Walk is the Bank’s flagship volunteerism and fund-raising event in its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme which focuses on art, children and education. The Run/Walk was held simultaneously across seven Asian markets namely China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The 2019 UOB Heartbeat Run/Walk raised a record of more than $1.58 million to benefit 15 charities across Asia that focus on improving the lives of children and youths. In Singapore, the donations will help underprivileged and special needs children from AWWA School, Care Corner Educational Therapy Service, Down Syndrome Association (Singapore) and Extra●Ordinary People.
UOB Heartbeat runners and walkers in Singapore gathered bright and early at 6am at Stadium Roar, Singapore Sports Hub, to complete either a three-kilometre walk, a five-kilometre run or a ten-kilometre run. Ten country managers from UOB’s international offices also made their way down to Singapore to join in the event. Mr Wee Ee Cheong, UOB’s Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer ran the ten-kilometre route, as he has done every year.
“The annual UOB Heartbeat Run/Walk is an opportunity for us as individuals and as a company to demonstrate our long-term commitment and support of those in the community facing challenges, especially children. I am heartened by the enthusiasm of the extended UOB family of colleagues, customers, families and business partners, who keep the good going year after year,” Mr Wee said.
One of the beneficiaries this year is Muhammad Ariz, a seven-year-old who is on the autism spectrum. He is currently enrolled in the Extra•Ordinary People’s “Sponsor a Star” programme, where he is learning to communicate better through speech and language therapy. As part of the programme, a therapist works with Ariz to help him gain more confidence in expressing himself through words and to be able to communicate with others across different social settings.
Madam Hariyah binte Salim, Ariz’s mother, said, “Before we enrolled him into this programme, he was struggling with learning social skills and speaking to people. Extra•Ordinary People has helped him to be more confident in social situations. It has also helped Ariz and the people he interacts with see that being different is not about being less, and that in fact you can be so much more.”
Going green - new sustainable efforts to protect the environment
UOB has stepped up on its green initiatives at this year’s UOB Heartbeat Run/Walk to reduce the event’s impact on the environment and for UOB employees to go green as they run and walk for charity. These initiatives include:
- Eliminating single-use plastics in all race packs across the region. In Singapore alone, turning to plastic-free packaging has reduced the use of plastic by more than 100 kilogrammes.1
- Replacing more than 20,000 plastic cups2 with biodegradable corn starch cups and encouraging all participants to bring their own water bottles on event day.
- Saving more than 120 kilogrammes of paper by using a digitalised registration process which included using QR codes for race pack collection.
- Adding 10 sets of recycling bins across the event site for recycling of all plastic water bottles, metal cans and general waste. With the help of Green Nudge, a local social enterprise group, the recycled bottles were collected to use in art activities, while banana peels were collected for composting into organic fertilisers.
In another environmentally conscious step, participants from the three and five kilometre run/walk also help to collect litter along the route. Called “plogging”, this activity is a combination of fitness, volunteerism and environmental protection.
1 Compared with the amount of plastic used for the race packs at the 2018 UOB Heartbeat Run/Walk event
2 Compared with the amount of plastic cups used at the 2018 UOB Heartbeat Run/Walk event
