OCBC taps on technology to continue volunteer outreach activities

Singapore

WITH social distancing becoming the buzzword in Singapore in recent months due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, most volunteer activities here have come to a standstill for the time being.

In the case of OCBC, as the bank's volunteers still engage their charity partners and beneficiaries almost every month, their immediate concern was to ensure that interactions with the children, youth and seniors continue without putting anyone at risk.

So as early as March, the bank started exploring how it could leverage technology to organise real-time volunteering activities, to provide emotional support to the different beneficiaries of its charity partners such as Beyond Social Services.

One of the initiatives was to organise an interactive story-telling activity for children from Beyond Social Services.

Among the 12 bank staff volunteers who collectively wrote the script for the short story was Chua Wee Pang, who spoke of how the team had to overcome some bloopers along the way.

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"On my first take, I went through the whole storytelling process only to realise I did not press the record button," he said.

Fellow volunteer Gernelle Ng said: "It was a meaningful use of time during this period to spread a simple but important message to the children. We definitely enjoyed spending time with these children and their laughter truly made our day."

OCBC said it will continue to leverage real-time virtual volunteering to build relationships with all its beneficiaries, until they are able to resume face-to-face meetings. In the works is a session to help seniors exercise their cognitive capacities while they are cooped up at home, as well as a virtual excursion.