In furtherance of its commitment to impacting the lives of individuals in its host communities across seven countries, First Bank of Nigeria Limited has announced the fifth edition of its Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability (CR&S) Week scheduled for 22 – 27 August 2022.
The event, which is themed: “Kindness…. A Way of Life”, reflects the single-minded purpose to make a difference in the world by inspiring and institutionalising kindness.
The FirstBank CR&S Week is a dedicated period designed to offer opportunities for employees to give their time and resources to defined causes in line with the Bank’s CR&S strategic approach.
The CR&S Week will offer employees opportunities to give their time and resources to defined causes. The Week’s activities are an aspect of the bank’s Employee Giving and Volunteering Programme, which was instituted to encourage employees to give back to the community as well as inculcate in them the integral corporate culture of giving.
The bank held the maiden edition of the CR&S Week in 2017 with a focus mainly on three key initiatives/activities which were giving and visits to orphanages/less privileged homes/Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs); career counselling day; and Staff Promoting Acts of Random Kindness (SPARK) initiative – which is now Start Performing Acts of Random Kindness, a values-based initiative designed to raise consciousness that we can choose to be kind. The CR&S Week has become more successful in subsequent years and it is fast becoming a household name in the bank’s host economies.
There are five main activities to be implemented during this year’s CR&S Week in Nigeria, FBNBank UK and across the its markets. They include SPARK App, Kind Comments Day, visits to orphanage/less privileged homes, SPARK School Engagement, and Women Economic Empowerment.
The major highlight of the Week will be the launch of the SPARK App. The app is strategic in the bank’s journey to institutionalise “A Day of Kindness” on a national level, and globally position the bank as a corporate citizen in leveraging new media to drive sustainability practices.
The SPARK App is a sensational application designed to have individuals abreast with the act of kindness through various kindness-based quotes and inspirational phrases that will be displayed on one’s phone screen, especially when the phone is idle.
Kind Comments Day is an initiative that focuses on inspiring and encouraging everyone to be deliberate with the use of kind words in relating or interacting with anyone.
With Women Empowerment, the bank will support, VVF patients in need of surgical operations and also empower them with vocational skills as they integrate back into the society.
The SPARK Schools Engagement will be implemented through the National Competition of JAN SPARK School Integration. The activity is aimed at rewarding the various participating students, following their SPARK activity.
Through the partnership with JAN, SPARK is integrated into the JAN Company Programme, where students are taught the values of SPARK. The SPARK schools’ competition has been tied with company programme regional competition, ensuring they imbibed the values taught during the training. One of the highlights of the event is the visit to orphanage homes and the less privileged, across various cities which will be carried out by volunteers from the bank.
Speaking on the week, FirstBank CEO, Dr Adesola Adeduntan said: “The CR&S Week is another opportunity to strengthen our commitment and extend our reach beyond the communities where we operate in Nigeria and across our subsidiaries. Over time, our goal has stayed the same, to create platforms through which our positive impact is felt.
“For us in the FirstBank Group, beyond saying that we care, we take a step further and show it”.
Through the years of commemorating its annual CR&S Week, FirstBank has impacted lives across its host communities in Nigeria, the United Kingdom and its SSA subsidiaries. These impacts comprise the partnership with Lagos State Government on the provision of a Primary Health Centre at Ijedodo Community; engagements with over 60 charities, Non-governmental organisations, orphanages, correctional centres, schools and IDP camps which resulted in touching the lives of over 20,000 underprivileged individuals in the society including widows, orphans and children with disabilities.
FirstBank is the premier bank in West Africa and the leading financial inclusion services provider in Nigeria for over 128 years.
With over 750 business locations and over 180,000 banking agents spread across 99 percent of the 774 Local Government Areas in Nigeria, it provides a comprehensive range of retail and corporate financial services to serve its over 30 million customers. The Bank has an international presence through its subsidiaries, FBNBank (UK) Limited in London and Paris, FBNBank in the Republic of Congo, Ghana, The Gambia, Guinea, Sierra-Leone and Senegal, as well as a Representative Office in Beijing.
