The PHC Group is well aware of its societal obligations as a corporate citizen in the regions it has a presence in. We actively work to develop region-based activities that make real contributions.
TOPICS
ASCENSIA DIABETES CARE REACHES MILLIONS OF PEOPLE TO RAISE AWARENESS ON WORLD DIABETES DAY
This World Diabetes Day, Ascensia Diabetes Care is proud to support the International Diabetes Federation’s official theme, Nurses Make The Difference. Across the globe nurses play a crucial role in the prevention, diagnosis and management of diabetes. To celebrate this, we have captured inspiring stories from people with diabetes across the world who want to thank nurses for the support they provide. We have created 25 individual videos of people from 22 countries across the world showing their gratitude and appreciation to those nurses who have helped to make living with diabetes easier. We have filmed them as they write thank you letters to their nurses that describe the exceptional care and support they have received. Help us celebrate the difference that nurses make by visiting www.ascensia.com/wdd2020/.
Our 2018 campaign was focused on the ‘Family and Diabetes’. It used family portraits that had professionally drawn line art added to tell the inspiring stories of how families support people with diabetes. The campaign included 38 videos from 30 countries produced in 24 languages and was able to reach over 7 million people across the globe. View the videos at www.ascensia.com/wdd2018/.
In 2019, we wanted to take the family campaign one stage further and hear from people with diabetes and their families from across the world. We interviewed 24 families from 21 countries who offered an inspiring and exclusive view into the support that families provide. We reached over 4 million people and the stories can be viewed at www.ascensia.com/wdd2019/.
In total, we have reached more than 28 million people with our campaigns and we hope to continue our efforts to help the IDF raise awareness of diabetes among the general public.
TOPICS
ASCENSIA DIABETES CARE SUPPORTS THE SPARE A ROSE CAMPAIGN
#Spare A Rose
Since 2018, Ascensia Diabetes Care has been thrilled to support the Spare A Rose campaign, which is organized by the international organization, Life for a Child (https://lfacinternational.org/sparearose/). The campaign encourages people to buy at least one less rose on Valentine’s Day (February 14th) and donate the value of these flowers to help save the life of a child living with diabetes.
Life for a Child believe that no child should die of diabetes. Through the funds they raise, they are able to provide young people living with type 1 diabetes in less-resourced countries with access to life-saving insulin, blood glucose testing tools and diabetes education. They are currently supporting over 19,000 young people in 42 countries, including Rwanda, Mexico and India.
Each year Ascensia encourages employees to donate and then matches their generosity with a corporate donation. In 2018, our total donation was $11,130 and in 2019 our total donation exceeded $12,000. In these two years our support represented around 30% of all donations, making Ascensia the biggest supporter globally for two years in a row.
The money raised has specifically helped to save lives of children with diabetes through projects in Mauritania, Jamaica and Mali. For example, in Jamaica, our support has helped to fund 6,570 vials of insulin and testing kits for HbA1C and microalbuminuria for 365 kids who are part of the Life for a Child initiative on the island. Without this initiative, they would not be able to get these supplies for their diabetes management.
We are committed to supporting the phenomenal work of Life For A Child and believe this campaign can truly make a difference to the lives of children with diabetes. This initiative provides our employees with an opportunity to live our “Only Diabetes” company value and shows the world that we are a Trusted partner of the diabetes community. We hope to continue our support for this organization in the future.
#Spare A Rose
PHC Associates Corporation
Regional Action Programs to Support the Disabled
As a special subsidiary of PHC Holdings Corporation, PHC Associates Corporation employs persons with disabilities. The company actively accepts on-site trainees from special support education schools, holds workplace visits, and provides opportunities for hands-on work experience as part of the effort to support disabled persons in the local community.
Also, by regular visits to the special support education schools and through career networks where talks are held with teachers and students, we provide advice from a company’s perspective on the education required at schools to prepare for working at general corporations.
PT PHC Indonesia
Construction of School Toilets and Hand Washing Facilities
In line with the company's policy to contribute to local community development, PT PHC Indonesia periodically carries out Corporate Social Responsibility activities focusing on health improvement. One such activity that we have done is the construction of toilets and hand washing facilities at elementary schools near the PHCI site.
There are many elementary schools near the PHCI site, that have poor sanitation. The number of toilets is not equal with the number of students. This condition has impact on the smoothness of the education process. Sometimes, students have to go back home just to go to a toilet. The heads of schools and teachers really hoped for support from the government or other parties to increase the number of toilets.
Besides the toilet issue, there are no hand washing facilities in each elementary school. The students have difficulties washing their hands after activities or before eating. Indirectly, this will impact the students’ health performance. Referring to above conditions, PHCI was committed to donate by building toilets and hand washing facilities at elementary schools that have poor sanitation. In this fiscal year, the donation was made to elementary school ‘SDN Mekarwangi 03’ located around 2 km from PHCI. This is the fourth donation by PHCI. The hand over was held on March 10, 2020 by PHCI President Tsuguru Hirano.
Mr. Hirano’s speech
Toilet and hand washing facility
After the ceremony
PT PHC Indonesia
Spraying Insecticide at Employee Housings
In line with the company's policy to contribute to local community development, PT PHC Indonesia periodically carries out Corporate Social Responsibility activities focusing on health improvement.
Sanitation has become a common problem in every housing. Poor drainage systems create many water puddles in the water canal and leads to faster breeding of mosquitos, especially during the transition period from dry season to wet season. One type of mosquito, called aedes aegypti, is very dangerous. This mosquito can cause dengue fever which if not properly handled can be fatal. The spreading of this disease is also very fast.
To address this problem, PHCI initiated spraying of pesticide in employee housings to eradicate the mosquito. In this fiscal year, the activity was carried out at ‘Telaga Harapan’ housing on December 14, 2019, in collaboration with our pest control vendor PT Etos Indonusa. At the same time, we also held a pest control seminar to increase the knowledge and awareness in the community.
Spraying insecticide in water canal
Pest control seminar
Participant (PHCI staff, PT Etos, local community)
PT PHC Indonesia
Supporting Local Health Organization
In line with the company's policy to contribute to local community development, PT PHC Indonesia periodically carries out Corporate Social Responsibility activities focusing on health improvement. This is the third fiscal year of our CSR implementation, and we have already completed several activities. One of them is supporting local health organization activities by donating healthy meals for babies and toddlers periodically and holding health seminars. There is an Indonesian government direction that every village should have an organization that has the function to maintain and improve the health of pregnant mothers, babies and toddlers. This organization is called Posyandu. The main activity of this organization is monitoring baby/toddler development including their health, giving vitamin/food supplement, immunization program and education. The government health agency has the responsibility to control and manage those activities.
Realizing that this organization is very important for developing the next generation, PHCI initiates to support the organization’s activities by donating “health meals” (such as milk, biscuits) for babies/toddlers and holding health seminars periodically. Donation of health meals is done every month for 50 children, whereas for health seminars, the last one was held on January 7, 2019 in collaboration with the doctor from Omni Hospital.
Health seminar by a doctor
Donation presentation
After the seminar
PHC Europe B.V.
Belaya Rosa Foundation
The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly increased global and national economic uncertainty, which has placed new emphasis on the subject of poverty. Child poverty is an issue that we have been actively involved in fighting for well over a decade through our own charity.
Russia has the highest child poverty rate in the world, with an estimated 1 in 4 children living below the poverty line1. Many Russian children, who live in single parent families, or have been abandoned by their parents, struggle to thrive with Russia’s limited orphanage provisions and youth care systems.
Our staff became more aware of this by hearing about the plight of disadvantaged children who faced extreme poverty in the southern Russian city of Stavropol, through a colleague. They wanted to help.
In 2008, a new charity - The Belaja Rosa Foundation – was set up with financial support from PHC Europe B.V. It aims to improve the lives of disadvantaged children in Stavropol, through educational and leisure activities. It achieves this through the hard work of a dedicated local team of volunteers, who are headed by Vladimir Makedonskiy.
Initially, the Foundation focused on helping young children from large families (with four or more children), the children of single mothers, alcoholic- or homeless parents, orphans, and street children.
It provided opportunities and encouragement to these children to attend school and participate in recreational activities, such as dance.
Later on, the Foundation also began to focus on older children. In Russia, orphanages provide child care until the age of 16, but not after this age. It is simply assumed that the children will then be independent from this stage onwards.
The children are often unprepared for this transition. The Belaja Rosa Foundation aims to help these children to become independent. In addition, the Foundation organizes holiday camps and day trips for disadvantaged children in the summer.
Today, the Foundation provides support to around 2,400 disadvantaged children from Stavropol. Ongoing support from PHC Europe B.V. is used as directly as possible to make a difference in the children’s lives.