Volunteerism
Community Partnership Day
The Novartis Community Partnership Day, held in April each year to commemorate the month in which Sandoz and Ciba-Geigy merged to form Novartis in 1996, provides an opportunity for our people around the world to make a difference in their local community, expressing their own individual commitment to corporate citizenship.
The initiative is aimed at supporting local communities, social institutions and non-profit organizations with projects compatible with our commitment to social responsibility.
The work during Community Partnership Day is normally accomplished collectively outside the office and leads to personal contacts in the community. The activities make a meaningful contribution in an emotional or technical sense. In the context of these activities, people become more aware of the challenges of unusual life circumstances.
Activities have included renovating schools, accompanying children with disabilities on day-trips, working at food-donation banks, and using business skills to help local organizations improve their efficiency. In 2008, more than 10 000 associates took part in the Community Partnership Day. Here are some of the highlights:
- More than 3 600 associates across Switzerland participated in two hundred projects. In the Basel area, associates worked on 150 projects such as accompanying disabled children and elderly people on excursions to the zoo or reconditioning forest areas and repairing playgrounds in the region. In Bern, associates planted reeds along the shores of Lake Bienne, built nests for ring snakes and reconditioned the dry stone walls in the vineyards. Associates in Nyon organized recreational activities for handicapped people and coaching sessions for young people looking for professional reinsertion.
- In Belgium, the motto of this year’s Partnership Day was “helping to realize the Olympic dream.” Among the activities, Novartis associates organized a fund-raising bicycle tour for the Belgian paralympic team. Further, a team of Novartis employees played against Belgian paralympic goal ball visually-impaired athletes. Money collected during both events was given to the Belgian paralympic committee.
- In Canada, more than 150 associates volunteered to help 10 community groups, including a seniors’ citizens residence, women’s shelter, food bank and youth centre.
- In India, the Community Partnership Day extended to a whole week. During this time, Novartis associates went out to spread cheer among the elderly, the underprivileged, the physically- and mentally-challenged. For the first time, the local affiliate collaborated with an NGO in a unique resource mobilization initiative providing clothes and other basic amenities to the have-nots in far-flung areas – turning one’s waste into a resource for another.
- In the Philippines, Novartis associates reached out to three communities, painting and refurbishing a school in Manila’s depressed area, planting a vegetable garden in a temporary shelter and bringing cheer to underprivileged children in an orphanage.
- Close to 600 associates from Novartis China participated in the Partnership Day. In Shanghai, associates visited an orphanage, at the global Novartis R&D center, they played host to graduate students while in Beijing, they planted trees. In Changshu, eastern of China, activities included cleaning streets and picking garbage on a nearby mountain.
- In Slovenia, 120 associates engaged in a wealth of activities, including landscaping the grounds of a climatic spa for children with asthma and other chronic respiratory diseases. They also renovated a shelter for children who have been removed from their families due to physical violence or psychological abuse, and assisted in the Special Olympics held in Lendava, where over 200 children and adults with mental disabilities competed.
- Since the inception of the Community Partnership Day, Novartis Argentina has been a strong and steady supporter of institutions devoted to children and elderly people in need. Associates spent the day visiting these institutions to donate food and clothes, complete household activities and entertain inhabitants.
