Westpac

In 1998, Westpac engaged in a student-mentoring program to assist students in broadening their life experiences and improving self-esteem. It was the first project of its type in Australia between a major banking institution and a small inner city high school.

All mentors in the program originated from Westpac's Sydney financial markets department.

The benficiary of the program, Cleveland Street High School, is a small inner city co-educational high school in Sydney. The school has an amazing multicultural aspect, with students of non-English speaking background being catered for through an intensive language centre as well as approximately 55% of the students being of Aboriginal background. In addition, many students are on specialised programs to help them overcome their distinct socio-economic disadvantage.

Through the program, the Department of School Education provided Westpac staff with specialist training in Child Protection and Drug Issues and police checks were carried out on all mentors in accordance with the Child protection Act.

Volunteering NSW interviewed potential mentors and prepared the bankers for the new experience ahead whilst also offering on-going support to those who wished to be debriefed following their mentoring experience.

From a community perspective, the Students' parents were carefully briefed prior to the launch of the program and got the opportunity to meet the mentors and school staff who were to become active in the program.

The program operated in three distinct stages:

1. An initial phase of preparation, planning and training was conducted;
2. Structured team building exercises and group activities for mentors and students were held;
3. Mentors and students met as 'pairs', selected a project/activity to work on together and then presented project results at a final celebration.

The evaluation of the outcomes were positive for all parties. Mentors experienced increased awareness of a wider community, improvement in their communication skills, higher job satisfaction and pride in Westpac's corporate cultural values. Students displayed stronger self-motivation, increased tolerance for others and took on a greater responsibility for their actions. They also expressed a change to feeling safe and having altered expectations about education and life options.

The program was then expanded to include a Melbourne school as well (Collingwood College) and has continued to be a great success.

In addition to the specific case study above, Westpac also conducts a staff volunteering program, Community 2000, in which over one-third of its staff are actively involved in their local community as volunteers. Westpac supports this voluntary work through paid time-off for volunteering, flexible working arrangements to enable staff to meet their commitments in the community, as well as financial support through the Managing Director's Awards for Community Service excellence to the organisations in which staff work as volunteers.

Westpac and the Manly Environment Centre

On Friday 6th December 2002, with bush fires raging across NSW, the Westpac Corporate Volunteering team lent the environment a helping hand, planting over 700 seedlings for the Hop in and Help Manly Lagoon Project.

Manly Lagoon was identified as the State's most polluted coastal lagoon in the 1995 Manly Lagoon Estuary Management Study, with boating, fishing and swimming now banned.

The Hop in and Help Manly Lagoon Project is funded by the Natural Heritage Trust and supported by Manly Council and Manly Environment Centre has aimed to reverse the polluted state of the Lagoon by working with 6000 volunteer hours over the last 14 months to ensure the development and implementation of:

1. Water Quality Monitoring,
2. Bush Regeneration and Rehabilitation,
3. Community Education,
4. Event Management,
5. Community Art Projects, and
6. Website Creation.