Further, the Company’s active involvement in the community recognises no political or geographical boundaries. We continued to work with government ministries, NGOs and voluntary organisations with the sole aim of bettering our society for the benefit of others less fortunate or able.
This approach has served to create a level of interaction with our community – and, therefore, many of our customers – that goes well beyond the simply transactional, leading to a level of relationship that bonds us more closely and naturally than many other organisations.
Our Nawras Goodwill Journey is a prime example of this. Now in its eighth year, a group of fasting volunteers visited different charitable organisations across the country, over a ten-day period, to make essential donations which will have an enduring impact because they meet real local needs.
Since the first Goodwill Journey in 2005, Nawras has reached out to more than 7,000 individuals and families. Our volunteers have visited more than 150 charitable organisations and non-government organisations in the Sultanate, travelling 48,000 kilometres to bring joy to the people of Oman during the Holy Month of Ramadan.
Another highlight was our agreement with Kickworldwide, an organisation committed to ‘changing lives through football’. It is tasked with creating social awareness among young people, leading to a new employment stream for Omani nationals, including coaching, refereeing, sports science and law, journalism, and photography.
In December alone, we sponsored and supported the Muscat Youth Summit 2012, the first GCC Businesswomen’s Forum, and Oman Debate 2012, maintaining our commitment to engage with the local community and customers at every level.
While we continued to enjoy a strong profile as a result of our wide-ranging association with sporting and other events, the Company’s less public initiatives proved to have no less powerful an impact.
The SMS Charity Donation Service – also in its eighth successful year – proved, once again, the perfect marriage of technology, convenience and charitable giving, by enabling customers to make donations via SMS to Oman Charitable Organisation (OCO).
We have always recognised the role of women in our workplace.
We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and to reward the contribution of our female staff at many different levels. This included appointing nine of our most talented women to senior roles as store managers during the year.
We marked the third Omani Women’s Day with a colourful celebration, during which we showed Nawras family members a specially commissioned video highlighting the impact of Nawras women in the Company, as well as their contributions to family life and small businesses.
We also run the ‘Springboard’ programme in collaboration with the British Council, as part of a long-term commitment by us to empower women. This course enables women to grow their potential in the Company and community by giving them the confidence and skills to achieve their professional and personal goals.
To date, there have been more than 85 Nawras Springboard graduates, a statistic of which we are very proud.
Our duty of care to the community also extends to the environment and our impact upon it.
We are a member of the Environment Society of Oman and support the global drive for the preservation and responsible consumption of the world’s natural resources.
We backed that support with our participation in Earth Hour 2012 for the third consecutive year, ensuring that lights and all non-essential electrical appliances in the Nawras Campus, multimedia contact centre, and all 26 stores across the country were switched off for an hour, a tangible effort to reduce our carbon footprint.
Further ‘green’ initiatives include encouraging our customers to switch to electronic bills instead of paper ones and to use e-recharge through 75 convenient self-service machines located across the Sultanate. We also promoted mobile-to-mobile credit transfer as another way to avoid the use of plastic recharge cards.
A good corporate citizen is judged on many fronts, including its role in the community. For Nawras, 2012 reinforced the Company’s reputation in this respect, but also shaped the lasting legacy that is a hallmark of a strong and effective CSR policy.
That legacy is already taking many forms: improving fitness and health through our support for sporting activities; simply bringing people closer together to strengthen communities; boosting knowledge and education; generating well-being and a sense of belonging; and, through our various local programmes, giving communities the means to thrive.
Our proactive engagement with the community is now widely acknowledged. Its value to the Company cannot be overstated, since every member of the Nawras family benefits from the common goals and sense of purpose that it gives them as part of their daily working lives.
We will continue to be a responsible, caring Company by maintaining the high level of commitment to our community through an association with sporting, cultural and social events, for the benefit of the wider community and the country as a whole.