Makeover for MAB premises

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THE façade of the Malaysia Association for the Blind (MAB) and the surrounding areas were given a spruce-up recently.

Working together with the MAB employees and residents on the painting job were 14 staff of FedEx Express, who carried out the project in conjunction with ‘FedEx Cares Week,’ a regional-wide corporate social responsibility initiative that was held from Sept 14 to 20.

It was the second time FedEx employees in Malaysia and the Asia Pacific had taken part in the “FedEx Cares Week” programme.

“I am encouraged by the enthusiasm and support shown by our employees and their willingness and passion to make our community a better place to work, live and play,” said FedEx Express Malaysia managing director Ramesh Kumar Singam.

Leading by example: Ramesh (second from left) with FedEx volunteers in action at the Malaysian Association for the Blind.

“At FedEx, we promote volunteerism in our workforce and encourage employees to take part in socially responsible projects that generate a sense of caring, purpose and pride among them,” he added.

Earlier this year, FedEx had donated US$10,000 (RM38,000) to MAB to undertake landscaping work, including painting and setting up flower and vegetable gardens.

The MAB has used some of the donation to buy Braille books and an embosser that transcribes books in Roman text into Braille.

As part of the regional initiative, FedEx employees in Australia, mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam took part in a variety of community-support activities, including promoting environmental awareness through coastal clean-up, visits to homes for the elderly, book drives for poor children.

They aslo carry out and projects to inculcate life skills such as road safety and evacuation training in mountainous regions in China. The programme involved 32 initiatives to benefit 29 cities in 11 Asia-Pacific markets.

Launched in the United States in 2005, FedEx Cares Week was celebrated from Sept 21 to 28 in the United States and Latin America.

More than 3,000 FedEx employees serve local organisations dedicated to improving the quality of life in the communities they serve, as part of the annual week-long global initiative.

“Each year, FedEx employees contribute more than 100,000 hours of volunteer work in support of various community projects around the world in the areas of education, disaster relief, child pedestrian safety, and health and humanity services.

“We will carry on building our company’s culture of charitable giving and volunteerism that has been the hallmark of FedEx for decades,” Ramesh said.