Corporate Social Responsibility

CMS Employees Do Construction Work to Help the Poor

16 May 2007, Kuching: Last weekend, a handful of sporting CMS executives and managers did something fairly out-of-the-ordinary for recreation, namely, hard manual labour at a construction site.

Forgoing their usual weekend activities, the team of eight, from Centre Management’s Group Internal Audit and Group Information Technology as well as CMS Property Development, chose to get busy helping global non-profit organization Habitat For Humanity (HFH) build a small concrete house, in the name of giving a family “the right to a decent home.”

Situated in Jalan Puncak Borneo near 10th Mile, the dwelling will eventually be one of two new homes for two poor Bidayuh families which now live in squatter-like conditions in the area. However, it must be stressed that the new houses are not handouts, as the families are also pitching in to construct their new home and will be working to keep it.

What do we mean by “building”? That weekend, there was plenty of toiling in the dirt, sun and rain, cutting and preparing dozens of iron bars for housing foundations. No ditches were dug, but the work was certainly tiring! That was particularly true for those who volunteered for the full eight hours on Saturday, May 12.

HFH Construction site Supervisor Eric Yap, who guided the CMS volunteers on May 12 and 13, said that the Habitat for Humanity centre in Kuching has built between five to eight houses a year on average for poor families from all races, religions and locations.

“It normally takes around a few weeks to put up each house, but that depends on how many volunteers come to help us,” he said, adding that volunteers from all walks of life across the globe come each year to Sarawak and other parts of Asia to help.

Housing is still a major socio-developmental issue for the hardcore poor in developing parts of Asia. In 1991, 1,500 squatter dwellings existed on the urban fringe of Kuching and 500 existed in Sibu, plus a total of 1,000 dwellings in the core areas of Sarawak’s four large cities. It would seem that much of Kuching's population is still relatively poor despite the traffic jams and the new five-star hotels.

THERE IS MORE WE CAN DO

This single pilot expedition was, for CMS, just a small sampling of what Habitat does. CMS strongly encourages more employees in its network to get involved. Eventually, we hope that enough employees will volunteer so that CMS can supply the entire manpower force that Habitat needs for one complete construction project.

These “Corporate Builds” offer opportunities for co-workers to grow, to bond and to unite in the goal of helping those in need. Employees at every level get to see each other at their best. The positive effects get carried back to the workplace.

Providing homes for the poor has been the mission of Habitat for Humanity divisions worldwide since it was founded in 1976. Today, Habitat for Humanity has built more than 220,000 houses, sheltering more than one million people in thousands of communities in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Eastern and Western Europe, and throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Habitat has 132 affiliates in the Asia-Pacific region and 2,291 worldwide.

For an interesting read called “Mapping Poverty in the Asia-Pacific Region”, go to http://www.habitat.org/ap/poverty_housing_report.aspx and check out www.hfhap.org for general information.

(PICTURE, TOP) Building for a Better Life: Some of the CMSB volunteers pose with HFH Construction Site Supervisor Eric Yap and the family at Jalan Puncak Borneo. From CMS: George Wong, John Yii, Peter Ngui, Angela Goh, and Mitra. Also seen are the family members which will benefit: Penrisen anak Sipen, his wife Marycolina Lubin, and their three children.