COMMUNITY

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYABILITY

In FY2015, we extended our education support for children with special needs to supporting the training needs of persons with disabilities and help them gain employment. This current gap in the social sector resonates with our community strategy.

We worked with national agency SG Enable and donated S$1.1 million to set up the Singtel Enabling Innovation Centre in Singapore. This is a community space with services and experts who assist young people to lead independent lives and enhance their employability. In addition, we will support the curriculum development and provide the expertise and time to support training programmes for the contact centre and ICT literacy courses at the facility, which is expected to be ready by end-2015.

Through staff crowdfunding and company matching in Australia, we raised A$10,000 to support an additional Australian Business and Community Network (ABCN) Scholarship. The ABCN Scholarship Foundation provides financial and mentoring scholarships to high potential students facing economic, family or social challenges that adversely affect their study or capacity to pursue their desired tertiary pathways. Our efforts meant that one more promising student was able to benefit from the scholarship, which covers school fees and other education-related expenses.G4-16

We continue to support The Smith’s Family mobile student2student programme, a peer tutoring reading module that pairs students with reading difficulties with older students who act as their buddy readers. During the year, 500 students aged 8 to 14 read to their buddies using mobile phones supplied and powered by Optus. This intensive reading programme is conducted two to three times a week over 18 weeks in the school year. At the completion of the 2014 programme, 94% of students improved their reading skills and 90% of participants agreed their reading has improved since participation.

We are also committed to creating opportunities for indigenous people in the communities where we have presence. Recognising that direct regional employment opportunities are limited, we partnered Diversity Dimensions, whose Retail Ready Program provides young indigenous Australians with the skills and opportunity to apply for work in the retail sector. Local supermarket retailer Woolworths is also ready to accept suitable graduates of our sponsored training programme in Kempsey, New South Wales (NSW), which has a high indigenous population.