As banker to the community, our Purpose is to help individuals and businesses across communities achieve their aspirations by providing them with innovative financial solutions. In the same helping spirit, OCBC, one of the key corporate members of the Singapore Compact for Corporate Social Responsibility, has a programme designed to support the community, centred on helping children and youths realise their full potential.

Our social responsibility programme continues on from the legacy of our founder, Lee Kong Chian, who in the 1950s actively made contributions to schools and libraries and helped many children and youths fulfil their aspirations through education. OCBC continues to encourage and support academic excellence by awarding book prizes and scholarships to outstanding youths from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and China, to pursue a higher education in Singapore, without any conditions attached.

Our community partner, the Singapore Children’s Society received our donation of S$2.5 million over the five-year period which started in 2004. With the funding, SCS reached out to more than 16,000 children, youths and families. Its school-based youth outreach programme – Project CABIN, increased from 16 to 18 secondary schools to include Bukit Merah Secondary School in 2005 and Bedok South Secondary School in 2007. And in 2006, the SCS’s Children’s Home moved to a brand new building - the Sunbeam Place.

In 2009, we announced that we will be committing an additional S$2.5 million to the Singapore Children’s Society over five years, from 2009 to 2013, despite the current economic downturn. This brings our total donation to the Society to S$5 million over 10 years.

Beyond cash contributions, our staff have been offering their time and skills to enrich the lives of the children and youths in the key countries that OCBC Bank operates in. Launched on 23 December 2004 to initially support the Singapore Children’s Society, the OCBC Staff Volunteer Programme has grown to a pool of more than 1,000 staff volunteers from Singapore, Malaysia, China and Indonesia (including Bank OCBC NISP) who help less fortunate children and youths in the region realise their full potential through various activities and programmes.

In Singapore, staff volunteers have enriched the lives of the children through various Society’s initiatives. They have brought the children to the Singapore Zoological Gardens and Singapore Flyer and more importantly cultivated their interest in reading, money-management as well as information technology workshops. These initiatives are aimed at creating fun and enjoyable experiences while teaching life skills to the children. Most notably in 2008, they worked with 173 youths from Project CABIN on the “SAVEnvironment Project”, where the youths learnt to appreciate their environment by designing posters and creating sculptures using recycled materials, and submitting them in a friendly competition.

In raising the literacy level of children from less privileged backgrounds, the NTUC Childcare Bright Horizons Trust Fund benefited from our donation of S$450,000. Dispersed over three years from 2006 to 2008, it has helped 300, or 27% of the total number of children.

Our philanthropic heritage of supporting children and education extends to China where we committed to donate RMB 1.5 million (S$300,000) over six years to the Soong Ching Ling Foundation. The funds, disbursed through the Soong Ching Ling Scholarship (“SCLS”) under the SCLS-OCBC Fund, will help about 800 outstanding children across China who need financial assistance. We gave our first set of scholarships to about 200 recipients in Kunming, China on 1 August 2008.

Last year, OCBC Bank also announced that it will be the title sponsor for OCBC Cycle Singapore 2009, Singapore’s first mass participation cycling event on public roads which caters for every level of cyclists from beginner to professional.

OCBC Cycle Singapore will be taking place on 22 February, 2009 and is designed to promote an active lifestyle among people of all ages and fitness levels. Sponsoring the event is in line with our ongoing commitment to engage with the community. The inclusive nature of the activity event and its ability to bring people closer together, are consistent with our value of Teamwork as well as our business propositions aimed at families.

Through this event, we hope to see as many Singaporeans take part in the event as the cycling course will allow. We also believe that the enthusiasm for, and participation in the event will only grow in the coming years.

In line with this sponsorship, OCBC Bank, the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) and the Singapore Amateur Cycling Association (SACA) also entered a one-year partnership to train and develop a pool of talented cyclists who will represent Singapore at major Games. The team will be sponsored by OCBC Bank and trained by the SSC and SACA.

This significant partnership is the first structured talent identification and development programme involving a corporate organisation, the SSC, and the national sports association for cycling (SACA) in Singapore. This follows on the heels of the recent announcement of the inclusion of road cycling in the programme for the 25^th SEA Games in Vientiane, Laos, this year.

The programme will help cycling enthusiasts fulfil their dreams and have a taste of competing among elite cyclists in regional competitions and to ensure that there is a steady pool of talented cyclists that SACA can work with and nurture for future events.

We hope that with our sponsorship of these aspiring road cyclists, coupled with the Singapore Sports Council’s structured talent identification and development programme which utilizes the latest sports science and technology, we will very soon see the Singapore flag flying high in international elite cycling competitions.

In response to the calamity brought about by the earthquake in Sichuan and Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, we sought to bring relief to the victims and their families. We donated RMB 1 million (S$200,000) to support rebuilding efforts in and contributed S$40,000 to the Singapore Red Cross Society to support the relief efforts in Myanmar. We opened up our banking channels to facilitate donations and our customers responded generously by donating over S$700,000. Our employees have collectively donated S$88,699 and S$28,917 to the China Earthquake and Myanmar Cyclone Nargis relief funds respectively. Our staff donation of RMB 160,000 (S$32,000) in China was used to rebuild Shi He Primary School which is located in Mianzhu City in Sichuan Province, one of the areas hardest hit by the Sichuan earthquake. The school was officially opened on 22 October 2008.