ANZ Involved In Educational Community Partnership

November 20 saw the announcement, by ANZ and the Saigon Children’s Charity (SCC), of a three year community education program called Project 3E: educate, enrich, employ. The project aims to provide quality education in the fight against poverty, enrich people’s quality of life and support the employment prospects of more than 4,000 disadvantaged children and young people living in Long My district, the Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang. CEO of ANZ bank, Tareq Muhmood, has pledged to raise more than $600,000 to support this initiative over a three year period. “Our target is to ultimately make sustainable change in the community of Long My, one of the poorest areas in the Mekong Delta,” he said. “ANZ staff in Vietnam and around the world can commit their time, money and other resources to enhance young people's learning and capacity to make a difference through this community education partnership. We hope to provide some of Vietnam’s most marginalised and impoverished young people with access to quality education and life skills, as well as a better and brighter future,” Mr Muhmood added. SCC Director Paul Finnis said “We applaud the outstanding efforts of ANZ to support disadvantaged children in Vietnam, especially those in Long My, by working in conjunction with SCC.” “Sustainability is key to the success of any community project. We believe the holistic and focussed approach of Project 3E will provide the necessary tools for disadvantaged children and young people in Long My to have a fairer start in life and help them reach their full potential through  quality education which is essential to their needs,” he noted. ANZ was named the most sustainable global bank in the 2013 Dow Jones Sustainability Index, for the sixth time in seven years and was also the first international bank to operate out of Vietnam, opening its first office in 1993. SCC is a UK registered NGO which has been operating in Vietnam for 20 years. SCC builds schools, award scholarships, provide access to vocational training and support organisations working with disabled children. (vov.vn Nov 20)