AIA CSR Initiative Promotes Healthy Living through Junior Football
7 mins read
Sponsors year-long activities of Brickfields Community Football Programme (BCFP)
Kuala Lumpur, 6 September 2014 – AIA Bhd. today announced a one-year corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative with the Brickfields Community Programme (BCFP), a volunteer-led football training programme for disadvantaged youth in the Klang Valley.
This collaboration is a meaningful one, in view of AIA Group’s five-year partnership with Tottenham Hotspur as its official Club Shirt sponsor until the end of the 2018/2019 English Premier League season. The launch of AIA’s CSR collaboration with the BCFP also coincides with the Tottenham Hotspur Legends’ Malaysia Tour, featuring legendary Spurs players, Ledley King and Osvaldo “Ossie” Ardiles.
AIA Bhd.’s Chief Marketing Officer, Thomas Wong, launched the CSR initiative in the presence of King and Ardiles, both of whom also made time to mentor the young BCFP players. Earlier in the day, AIA organised a special football coaching session for the BCFP players, facilitated by two professional Spurs coaches who were brought in for the event.
Wong said, as one of the largest insurers in Malaysia, AIA has always promoted the importance of healthy living, and what better way to promote a healthier lifestyle than by starting with the younger generation?
Wong added that the BCFP’s goals are in line with the values of AIA and Tottenham Hotspur as all three organisations recognise the important role that sport plays in developing healthy lifestyles in our society.
The football club, through its award-winning Tottenham Hotspur Foundation, has launched several successful community programmes in the UK and other parts of the world, creating over two million life-changing opportunities by using the unique appeal of football to improve educational opportunities and employability within underprivileged communities.
“Today, AIA is honoured to have the Spurs legends actively participate in our community event by mentoring the BCFP’s budding footballers,” Wong said. “As The Real Life Company, we believe that there are lessons on the field that can be applied off the pitch as well. I hope this session will inspire the young players to adopt the values of team work, perseverance and unity even in their day-to-day lives.”
Ledley King, as part of his Ambassadorial role with the Club, works closely with the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation around the Club’s regeneration scheme in North London, and said: “Through the success of our award-winning Foundation, we have seen how football can play an important role in improving people’s lives.
“Not only does participation in the sport encourage a healthy lifestyle, but football’s unique popularity can provide a hook with which to engage some of society’s most hard-to-reach young people in positive activities that can improve education and employment opportunities for them.
“It is great to work with AIA on delivering this coaching clinic for the BCFP. Through the Club’s five-year partnership with AIA, we will continue to deliver joint initiatives that promote health and vitality throughout the Asia-Pacific region,” King added.
BCFP founder R. Manogaran thanked King and Ardiles as well as the two Spurs coaches for the special session with the BCFP group.
Manogaran, a sports journalist, said BCFP was founded in 2010 with the goal of giving underprivileged kids an avenue to pursue sports, especially football. “We want to give them the best that they deserve, just like how parents want to give their kids the best that they can,” Manogaran added.
“We are grateful for AIA’s sponsorship. Their support will help us reach out to more kids including groups such as Orang Asli, shelter homes and refugees. AIA is also sponsoring the cost of rental of a permanent football field as well as an accredited football coach for our weekly sessions,” he said.
Manogaran explained that these weekly sessions were not focused solely on football. The BCFP programme also teaches players life skills, including how to cope with life’s pressures and to respect and love their parents, siblings and elders.
“There is a tendency for today’s kids to lead sedentary lives. We want them to have an active lifestyle so they grow up healthy,” Manogaran added. “We hope that by keeping them engaged through sport, the kids have good reason to stay focused and keep away from social ills.”
AIA is also providing the BCFP with better training equipment and will be sponsoring a football camp for the children later this year.
AIA’s support of the BCFP reinforces AIA’s brand position The Real Life Company, which encapsulates the Company’s longstanding commitment to be deeply engaged in the lives of its customers, employees, partners and the community.
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About AIA Bhd.
AIA Bhd. is a leading insurer in Malaysia, where we have been privileged to do business since 1948. We offer a suite of high quality products including Protection, Health, Personal Accident, General Insurance, Employee Benefits, Retirement and Family Takaful options to meet our customers’ protection and financial security needs at every life stage. Through our wide and diverse distribution footprint which comprises a tied agency force of close to 17,000 members, our exclusive bank partner’s branches nationwide as well as corporate sales teams and brokers, we give our customers the choice of deciding how, when and where they connect with us.
Part of the AIA Group, the largest independent publicly listed pan-Asian life insurance group, AIA Bhd. in Malaysia has the financial strength, experience, service centre network as well as a well-trained team of more than 2,000 staff to serve its 3 million customers nationwide. As at end 2013, AIA Bhd.’s total asset worth was RM42 billion, with a paid-up capital of RM767 million.
About Tottenham Hotspur
Tottenham Hotspur, also known as Spurs, is one of the most iconic clubs in British football. The Club was formed in 1882 and is an ever-present and founding member of the Barclays Premier League.
Tottenham Hotspur is a Club of firsts - becoming the first English club to achieve the League and FA Cup Double, winning both competitions in the 1960-61 season; in 1963 they became the first British club to win a major European trophy - the European Cup Winners' Cup. Victory in the 2008 League Cup Final meant that Spurs achieved the feat of winning a trophy in each of the last six decades, a record matched only by one other Premier League club.
The Club features in the top 15 of the Deloitte Football Money League, which ranks football clubs by revenue generated from football operations and is ranked 11th by Forbes magazine in their list of the richest football clubs in the world.
In 2012, the Club moved into a new state-of-the-art Training Centre, considered one of the finest facilities in Europe, and has advanced plans for a new world-class stadium development that will sit at the heart of a major regeneration for North London.
Tottenham Hotspur enjoys excellent media exposure around the world through the 212 broadcasters that have the rights to air live Premier League football with a cumulative audience of 4.7billion, including 955 million across Asia.
The Club has an extremely active fan base, which is large and growing, with a global following of over 180 million, including 80 million across Asia and additional strong supporter bases in the UK, the United States and Southern Africa, with over 100 Official Supporters Clubs worldwide including in Beijing, Indonesia, Shanghai, Thailand, Hong Kong, Huazhong, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and TianJin.
The First Team squad have visited Asia twice in the past five years as part of pre-season preparations, competing in the Barclays Asia Trophy in Beijing, China in 2009 and again in 2013 in Hong Kong.
About Tottenham Hotspur Foundation
Tottenham Hotspur boasts an award-winning Foundation that has created more than two million opportunities that have helped to enhance the lives of people in its local community through education, employment, health and social inclusion programmes.
The work of the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation has been recognised as a best practice model by local, regional and national governments as well as at international level through organisations such as the British Council, Special Olympics, Beyond Sport and the Premier League.
Building on a successful community development programme model in London, the Foundation has worked with Premier Skills to develop a new formal partnership with the British Council to help develop community projects in Rio, Brazil, where Foundation community coaches will share their experiences of good practice that they have delivered in the UK with local organisations particularly in the areas of Community Development, Health and Education.
Tottenham Hotspur Foundation coaches will also work alongside local grassroots coaches and referees to give them the skills and support to develop their own community football projects.
On a local level, Tottenham Hotspur Foundation supports the Special Olympics Unified Football project, enabling those with learning disabilities to play the game in a competitive environment alongside mainstream participants. This successful model is currently being replicated in Goa, India.
Tottenham Hotspur proudly supports and delivers grassroots, community and charitable partnerships across Asia:
- The Club is active throughout South East Asia delivering grassroots football clinics through its Global Coaching programme.
- The Club is a proud partner of the British Council’s The Pitch initiative - a multidisciplinary educational challenge using football as the subject area with the core messages of employability, innovation, language and value.
- The Club is also a global partner of the Special Olympics movement, providing sporting opportunities to learning disabled athletes throughout the world.
About Brickfields Community Football Programme (BCFP)
Founded in 2010 by R. Manogaran, the BCFP aims to give underprivileged kids a chance to pursue sports, especially football. It started off with seven children under the age of 10.
It has weekly coaching sessions every Saturday for their members and the first coaching session was held on April 10, 2010 in the Astaka Field in Petaling Jaya.
Apart from training sessions aimed at equipping them with football skills, sharing sessions are conducted as well every week to teach them vital lessons and real life values.
To get the kids away from a sedentary lifestyle, BCFP is growing stronger and becoming bigger now with over 100 kids having been touched by the programme so far.
