Article: From passion to action

Monday April 6, 2009

THE proposal to have the Rainforest to Reef (R2R) as Alstom's CSR programme stemmed from one person's passion for diving.

"Our colleague Aravind (Alstom Asia Pacific Sdn Bhd business improvement manager Aravind Karthigesu) is a keen diver, so when our head office in France opened up the chance for Alstom employees to submit project proposals, he suggested this programme," said Alstom global power sales and marketing customer manager Ng Hock Sin, 29.

Ng, who also took part in the beach clean-up, said there was good response to the programme from the children and even their parents.

"It's a good start to building interest in coral reef awareness and we will assess the impact after three years," Ng said.

About 50 company's employees would be involved in the project, with some taking on the role of facilitators for the camps.

Human resource manager Flora Tan, 31, said there was a lot of interest when the R2R project was launched.

"We received a lot of enquiries about it and we appreciate that our colleagues are sacrificing their personal time to come along," Tan said.

She said the children participating in the programme were very eager and it was a good way to instil awareness of the environment in them.

Finance director Berthand Lazard, 37, who also is an avid diver, participated in the project, too.

"The kids are very motivated. I hope that they will teach their parents and pass on the message," he said.

Related story:
Kids learn importance of conservation

This article was taken from: The Star Online:Metro: Central: 6 April 2009